It's the June Poet's Place!!

POETS PLACE

JUNE EDITION 2021

We’re open! Well pretty close to open. How did we get through all this chaos?? Wasn’t easy. Nothing is. We worked diligently at staying sane and safe. We followed the rules, well most of us did or we wouldn’t BE OPEN!!! Social distancing taught us how to be respectfully spaced from each other to allow for safe connections to be had. A standard that I hope remains, along with sanitation and continuing to wear a mask in public if you are ill and symptomatic.

June 2021 brings hope to our lives and validates that we can be resilient and power through the toughest of times. I am thankful that you all have continued to participate in this journey. You have shared your poetry and prose and you have hugged me through the barriers and the hurricane waves of sheltering in place. You are my saviors, my friends and my peers of hope and strength.

THANK YOU!!!!!

BIG Love, for reals, Linda :0)

BTW- I will be reading this published piece, Fools For Hope at the Arroyo Arts Collective’s closing reception of the same title June 19th 2pm at La Culebra Park in Highland Park, Ca. Check out the events page in this publication.

PLEASE JOIN US!!!

Fools For Hope
By Linda Kaye

Fools for hope

crow loudly for validation and encouragement

laughs hysterically for love

cries real tears for grief

and wishes for everyone to be kind

Fools For Hope will wait patiently for their turn

for justice

for democracy

for integrity

for sincerity thus-for prosperity

Fools For Hope will dust off their dirty knees after humiliation and continue to carry on

despite it all

Fools For Hope will continue to support and pray for the American way during times of crisis racism fascism and sociopathic narcissism

Fools For Hope are

Fools

For

Hope

it’s a necessary self medicating and positive process

individually wrapped in a healthy denial and sealed with a stamp of goodness

Don't Remind Me

11-16-2020
By Mary Cheung 

Live music is becoming an old memory,

Slowly it slips away

Reluctantly it clings for new things,  looking to pave its way.

My old friend,

    of smoky rooms and dingy hole in the wall places .

I saw the Knitters play,

in an old Hollywood basement,

   packed with bodies and sweaty screaming faces.

X at the santa monica civic.

Fleetwood mac on a massive stage.

Shriekback at the Variety Arts Center.

While Chris Issac rattles the

Greek auditorium cage.

There were many many more,

Live music,

   to feed my soul, 

adorned my eyes with visions,

Too kool to capture on a camera ya know.

Those melodies, 

    shoots into my veins,

Burns with fire, 

too wild to be contained.

It lite me up inside, burning with unholy sin. 

Until my outsides burned as bright,

as from deep under my skin.

High on life now from ur song.

Obliterates all problems,

There's no sadness, 

there's no wrong.

It's becoming an old memory now.

That life is all but gone.

Artist scramble to find their audience,

And their outlets to perform.

Zoom it, slack it, 

what other forms are there now?

Sludge of old memory;

Drips into a bright, shiny, plastic new form.

Distant,

     foreign, 

         off a screen is where you now adorn.

Oh, what I wouldn't give, 

To orbit in your space.

to be able to reach out and touch.

Scent and sight, fighting, 

to occupy the same place.

Live music is becoming an old memory.

Like the old geezer who's been retired for the new.

High techy, cheeky, latest trend millennial,

yeah Covid.....  I'm talking bout you!

Don't remind me, 

this ain't over.

One day Live music shall return.

Life,

   riding in on music,

It's not an "if",

but only a matter of "when". 

Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

Brown Eyes
By Lee Boek

Brown eyes

Invited me

To

Tomorrow

To Yesterday

A moment frozen

Forever

Just for the two of us.

They brought me

Back from the desert

To the well spring

To the garden

Of our love

Lee Boek, born and raised in the California Bubble, “first I was a teen-age evangelist whose ministry intersected with the civil rights movement while preaching in the southern United States. Then turning to the education I was warned never to get, to the anti war movement of the sixties, the environmental movement of the seventies and today. During this time I became a performer of satirical stories and sketches mostly based on my own life experiences. For the last nearly forty years I have been a member of and/or the Artistic Director of Public Works Improvisational Theatre”.

Journey of the Mind

By Valerie Larsen


Hello. My name is no one. And I think I’m invisible On your screen.

You can’t see me On your computer Zoom screen panel Because I’m blank. I’m gray, tedious, Mediocre, boring. I’m no one

You want to say hi to, Want to say bye to, Or want to hear from. I’m just no one.

But come with me at night time And hear the Spanish music
In my room with no stereo on. Listen to the talk show—

But no radio is playing—
And not enough meds are in my head. Hear all the different voices
Vying in competition
To hear from me now.

Or maybe if I don’t want
To play with those friends,
I can walk with a less broken soul I love to hear and see;
Rejoice that I am seen and heard, And that we are both — real.
Or I hear a friend on the phone— And treasure the goodness,
The “realness” of this voice.
Ah, to celebrate the genuine Fantastic tangible relationships
I carry on with every day.
Oh, the glory of reality. . .

Valerie Larsen is a retired high school English teacher of 37 years teaching in California. She now writes poetry in a writing group in the San Gabriel Valley and spends time working out and volunteering at a house of prayer. She is a recovering alcoholic with 27 years sobriety and she laments, “hold my head high with that acknowledgment. I have had chronic pain, emotional traumas, and addiction as part of my life. I have written all of my life and as an adult, spirituality has intersected with pain in my very personal poetry.  It has become a therapy for me as well as an art form”.

THE BUG MAN
By Sarah Hunter

He introduced himself in his profile on Match.com as a “Renaissance man of Science.” What that meant, as it turned out, was that he was a pest control inspector for restaurants and businesses who hired him to kill bugs for an exorbitant price.

Here’s what happened: I responded to his dull, “Let’s chat” generic request on my internet dating service by asking him where he lived went to school, what he was interested in, and any other question which I thought might spark an imaginative reply. He replied by asking me to meet him at Starbucks for a cup of coffee. To the point, I thought, but maybe this man of bugs would be a testosterone-ridden hunk. Who knew?

I met him on a Tuesday at 5PM, a safe time, before the possibility of a dinner date and too late to get stuck at lunch in case of deadly boredom or physical grotesquery. The last one I had responded to said he was an architect who was building a winery on the Carmel Coast. Turned out he lived in a trailer in Alhambra and worked on construction crew, pounding nails. The only brush with a winery on the Monterey Coast was his collection of wood he’d stolen from a winery, which had collapsed some twenty years ago. Feeling safe, then, I appeared at Starbucks five minutes early, full of hope. Settling myself at one of the window tables; I awaited his entrance. He was on time. I admit to feeling a bit disappointed, but at least he was taller than I, male, and had rather attractive blue eyes under tortoise-rimmed glasses.

We talked about my job as a teacher at an East Los Angeles high school and my over a decade of sobriety. We talked about his job as a bug man. It was borderline pleasant enough. Besides, I was hungry to date; I admit it. So, based on his being my age (59), a single divorced male, college graduate and somewhat articulate, I agreed to set a second date to go to The Huntington Gardens’ Renaissance Faire, which consisted of music and poetry from costumed performers held on the picturesque grounds of the Huntington,

Showering in my favorite blossom-scented bath gel from Victoria’s Secret, I fluffed and powdered myself for my actual date with Roy. I pictured us sitting on the sloping summer lawn at the Huntington, laughing together, and sharing little witticisms, transported back into Elizabethan times. I would maybe share my favorite Shakespeare sonnets, which I loved teaching to my students every year. Frankly, I was a bit giddy.

It was a warm, perfect time of the day –almost sunset. Roy arrived on time again. I greeted him at my door in my purple silk top and long, flowered skirt. I’d set my hair, applied full make up and with all the extra care I had taken, looked good. He was dressed in tattered, torn blue jeans and a frayed gray t-shirt with armpit stains. On his feet he sported filthy, battered tennis shoes. Now gray, they were probably once white. Clearly, we weren’t on the same page.

“Oh, I blurted,” how are we going to get into a decent restaurant with what you’re wearing?”

The bug man replied, “To hell with any restaurant that won’t let me in with these clothes.”

You see, we had agreed to dinner after the faire. I was speechless.

“Come on, “ he said, “let’s go I’ve got the top down on my convertible. Let’s get going.”

“Could you put the top up? I just washed and set my hair, and I’m wearing contact lenses. The wind will disturb my lenses.”

“My son wears contacts, so you won’t be bothered. He rides with me all the time. Be a sport!”

“No,” I said, “this won’t work. I guess we’ll need to take my car.”

“Okay,” he chirped. “I can save gas money. We can take your car.”

Looking back, I should have booted him out the door at that moment, but as I said before, I was still curious and just didn’t know how to get out of the date gracefully. Besides, maybe some part of him would be like Jack Kerouac, a rebel drunken poet, or some eccentric with a beautiful heart underneath that callous and filthy exterior. Maybe he collected exotic artifacts and traveled to far away places and had elevated philosophies of societal customs. Who knew?

We arrived at the Huntington and all its splendor. Roy wouldn’t shut up. Not for a minute. He chatted on and on about the bourgeoisie around us and how foolish I was to actually possess a membership at
the Huntington. Why did I care about art and all these paintings by “dead Dutch and English men”? Even the plants and spectacular landscape were a waste of “upper middle class talent

and taste.” “Who gives a rat’s ass about these Japanese Zen gardens? Just a bunch or raked rocks, for Christ’s sake!”

I tried to defend my membership to the Huntington while I counted the minutes until I could escape I sort did a little skip-hop to the car ahead of him. “Let’s get to the restaurant.” I called back. I just didn’t know how to tactfully get rid of him, so I thought moving through the series of planned events would be the best tack. Remember, also, that The Huntington had been my idea. I should have deposited him back at his car, but something inside me said, “Maybe dinner will be better.”

Roy, the entomologist in the gray pit-stained t-shirt and I (dressed for a formal dinner), arrived at The Wild Thyme Café for a bite to eat. I ordered a bowl of strawberries with a side of whipped cream and a cup of decaf coffee. I think Roy ordered a salad. Through the course of the dinner, Roy talked about my ex- husband’s father. It turns out that Roy had worked with him some twenty years ago, back in Detroit, Michigan. He told me Bob’s dad had been a total loser, a freak amongst gentlemen. Somehow this information made me feel sad and protective of Warren, Bob’s father. He went on and on about how Bob’s father had been unable to advance further in the ranks due to his drinking. All of this somehow gave me the notion I’d accidentally walked in on Warren in the bathroom and found him vulnerable and naked.

Then the Bug Man came forth with, “So, you say you’re in recovery and healthy now, and yet here you are drinking chemically drenched coffee beans and wolfing down fake whipped cream. Are you aware of the triglycerides and preservatives in that whipped cream? All those phony chemicals preserving those strawberries? You say you’re in recovery? HAH. You are doped up on chemicals!”

I jumped to my feet, shuffling to push the table back. “Okay, Roy, let’s go. Dinner’s over. I need to get home.”

He looked startled. “But, Sarah, it’s only seven o’clock.”

I shouted, “I don’t care -- we are out of here. Let’s go.”

On the way back to my house, which was thankfully only a ten- minute ride from The Wild Thyme, I stared ahead in dead silence. The Bug Man chatted on about the messes he’d encountered in restaurant after restaurant with the bugs and the germs. I tried not to listen. We arrived at his car, parked across the street from my house.

“Well,” he said with a little Winnie the Poo hang head, “I suppose this is the last time I’ll be seeing you, huh?”

Still staring straight ahead, my hands sweating at the wheel, contained fury in every cell, I replied,” yes, this will be the last time. In fact, I think when I get inside the house I’ll go online and cancel my Match.com membership.”

And so I did.

Sarah Hunter began creating characters and dramas in her neighborhood backyard at age eight back in West Lafayette, Indiana. From graduate school to her time in Los Angeles, Sarah remains a dedicated student of classical and modern theater.

She has dubbed Japanese cartoons, done voice-over work, had her original plays produced in Los Angeles and Pasadena, and continues acting, creating, writing and dreaming. The most important thing for Sarah is the continuous re-inventing of herself each time she writes another play or TV episode. Working with Sandra Cruze, on TWO HEADS ARE BETTER PRODUCTIONS has allowed her to continue writing episodes and acting, working on her one- woman solo shows which she has presented at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA and her “Dogs are Better Than People” at the Whitefire Theater in West Los Angeles. She will be presenting this piece a second time, as she has been awarded “The Best of the Solo Fest.” Stay tuned for June 12 at 7PM.

Sarah loves writing and performing in the episodes in “We’re Not Dead Yet” (WNDY) and enjoys watching them on the YOUTUBE channel. She and her creative partner, Sandra Cruze have been awarded 5 wins for their series. They are having a ball and definitely not “dead yet.”

Life is good.

I Love Praising Women
By: IE Carlo

22 March 2021

Well look at them

I love praising women

Their shapes and curves, eyes, mouth, and hair

Their intoxicating glutinous maximum movement 

as you observe them 

in their heels

Like meals on heels I say is real

For all is revealed in that strid built of confidence and zeal 

I live to praise women who are real

Give me a woman who knows her deal

And I am a happy man

Making it ideal

I love praising women

Who know their minds and speak

Clearly with purpose of mind

And adore comes to my mind 

For what is a person without a mind

Nothing difficult to galvanise to this of mine

I love praising women making them a pleasure of mine

As I hope I’m their pleasure of mind 

I love praising women particularly if they are mine

    

Ismael (East) Carlo, poet, actor begins on the streets of East Harlem, el barrio whose monica of “East” happened due to others not being able to pronounce the name, Is-Ma-El…

East, considers himself more a storyteller than a poet, although at times he gets lucky and poetry emerges from his stories...

For more about East, visit IMDB. Paz en Vida

Triad Poem
By Ronald G. Carrillo

• Tendaberry

She inspires me with her female epistles

Her soaring mezzo-soprano transports me out of my element

Tendaberry girl with the long hair evoking and emoting on her piano

She moves me and cherry blossoms appear while I am making tea

Nyro lyrics are jig-saws of her heaven and New York City

Gospel intentions with sewer reality situations

Tom Cat men edging out the backdoor of her life

Cruelty and devil captains adding her salty tears to the Hudson

I have been there and was used by those Tom of Finland men

Bouncers and bartenders with macho moustaches

Disco dancers and too cool pool players

Leather men and afternoon beer hustlers

But Laura’s arias were hard-core big city prophecy

I was fifteen and she guided my teenage footsteps to love

Sean and Filip were my first of that strange male persuasion

Fly by night and never a call always on the make having a ball

She was right “never gonna make a movie maker

Always be a city faker”

Tom, Dick and Harry all belonged to that same loser’s club

Tom cat feet prowling the back alleys and secret city streets

Then come a calling that big Captain man who soothed me

Big time lover man who knew how to use his hands

Wet kisses and too late sorrys sniffing the white stuff

Sharing my bed until we hit a dead end

Back to the sorrow of Tendaberry and miracles for her man

Like Billie she had the blues in spades

Had to give up her cigarettes and all the male charades

Frank-in-sense no longer made sense for me

A private inventory and freedom from the blues

Walking with poetry and pigeons along Hill Drive

I know I will survive all the Eli’s

No more sour strawberries from strangers

My life beyond the glitter and the lies now gone

Authentic no longer paying rent I own it

My life more simple but still spicy

Menudo but no mainstream

Laura before there was a Winehouse

Tendaberry and her 13th Confession predated Back to Black

But where is my sweet lovin’ baby

The Spring winds blowing magnolia fragrance in the Eagle Rock air

I am centered and patient with a full head of senior hair

Step forward and equal partners we can be

Mutual reciprocal senior men reaching a ten on our comfort level

• Blue Nyro Channeling Carrillo

Blue where were you when I was in high school

Oh Blue how did I come to know you

The Fabulous 52 and old black and white movies

Emily Dickinson poems of sorrow

Tennessee Williams and Miss Alma

A Delta nightingale who believed but could not receive love

Rising out of smoke and desire

Before love even spoke its name

Then that Sophomore year of Frank

With all my innocence to blame

My heart reached for the flame of love

You burned me Blue learning Nyro dialect

Seagulls and clouds in purple Cathedral skies

All lies except for Tendaberry and Blue

More layers of you in Holiday, Kahlo and Etta

My own poetry buttressed my teenage obsession of depression

Leaving Phantom fairies and into the disco kick-line

Now alcohol drank with Blue as I fell

Retreating completely from the garden

I was tempted and ate of the forbidden fruit

Turned to salt and killing my spirit brother

I fornicated with another with no name

Blue watched me go insane

Then the plague like a flood to clean my brain

Blackout to a groundhog’s day of repeated pain

But no recovery all in vain for Blue

I was now cruelly addicted to oblivion

Repeating nights and weekends of obsession

Drinking and fantasizing near death

No clear thinking only a Blue out of focus

Losing my breath but still conscious

My eyes unable to see you

My pulse unable to feel you

My heart beating erratically for you

My frequency out of tune

My energy failing

Waiting to fall into the Blue

• La-la-la Laura

Songs of inquiry

Piano chords on the spectrum of pain

Switching to major never staying in minor

Vocals searching for resolution and closure

Lovers unresolved in testaments of fidelity

Bleeding lyrics speaking for broken hearts

Sub feeling to sub feeling with no healing

Crescendo and climax with no satisfaction

Life in gray tones with no energy for action

Stuck in lethargy and doubt

Not able to see my way out of fear

Life on the edge in a fractured America

Can’t breathe in the racial air of discontent

Cruel democracy hanging from dead constitutional trees

Black lives bent and stunted unable to realize their full potential

Bled and the ill racial spread of hate toward brown immigrants

And now attacking American citizens of Asian descent

Why are the white entitled afraid

Are we no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave

Essential kindness for all

Reverential respect for life

Then the red, white and blue will reach its manifest

A holy spiritual destiny that can attest to Martin’s dream

Speak its truth to Laura’s fury in her soul to save the country

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.

DETOUR
By Stephen Buhler

Deep into someones' heartland,

Construction aims to ease commutes

And prepare future development

With roads blocked before being replaced.

On an unaccustomed route I see

Someone who farms (not a farmer –

A doctor – we know such things

Even about distant neighbors)

Has moved an ancient, unused horse trailer

To the side of the highway

With a newly commissioned banner about

White Christian men sailing the Mayflower

And writing the Constitution.

No word about the women, Christian

Or otherwise; no word about men and women

Denied rights and privileges; no word

About broken treaties or 3/5 representation.

It was not a large trailer, after all.

But it was large enough for desiccated memories

From textbooks that cultivated legislatures

Seek to make again curricular law of the land.

So when I pulled behind a truck

Bearing the license plate of another state

Deep into someones' heartland,

I puzzled after its possibly gnomic inscription:

II V7 I.

Was this another militia message?

Was this related to III percenters and worse?

And then music paved a way: I remembered that

In the key of C, this is D chord and

Then G7 and then C.

Perhaps the most comforting progression

In the world of jazz. It is home

And all about going home.

As I negotiated the detour on my way back,

I realized that these numbers were not a solution,

Much less a resolution.

But perhaps their coordinates charted a pathway

Not only back but forward.

Stephen Buhler teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and performs with the Americana-and-More group Tupelo Springfield.

Thanks for joining! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

With great hope for a loving and accepting future!

Love,
Linda Kaye

Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.

Linda Kaye writes poetry, curates poetry, produces spoken word and art events and produces a poetry column POETS PLACE for the online publication LAARTNEWS throughout the Los Angeles area.

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park .The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique and Zweet Café in Eagle Rock. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

Her most recent project a rap music video in collaboration with Mary Cheung, “ERACE-ISM” can also be seen on youtube. https://youtu.be/NfrbveNUBgg

.

Linda Kaye is a native Angelino who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology and social work. Linda, now retired was working for the last seven years as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 30+ years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

May Poet's Place

POETS PLACE

MAY 2021

Mental Health Awareness Month

What are you all doing to stay sane and healthy? There’s always so much dirt flying around that it takes all of our strength sometimes to stay above water and the mud! I find that I sometimes have to drag myself out of bed and force myself to exercise, stretch, walk and write. That works for me, but I know it doesn’t work for everyone. Depression is rampant amongst so many people right now, I wonder if it’s contagious. It takes effort, lots of effort to do anything that is meaningful, even just bathing sometimes, and not everyone has the motivation to take the leap. Depression has many faces. It is often triggered by the situation, the time of day, the weather, and certain anniversary’s, a history of trauma, genetics, nature and nurture, feelings of helplessness, death, divorce and low self-esteem. Just to name a few reasons. It’s just so very personal. It can be a choice to avoid the inevitable, a demon that needs to be fed, an emotional imbalance caused by brain chemical dysfunctions, or an inability to regulate emotions triggering a loss of self worth and embarrassments. Whatever the cause, there is always help and treatment. Whenever I have been alerted to someone’s pain from depression, I acknowledge him or her, them, they with love and kindness and offer an ear if that’s what is asked for. Many people do not share their pain and often suffer in silence, which is so sad since there is always hope if you reach out.

Please, reach out. Always.

Mental illness as a hustle

By Linda Kaye

It slowly creeps in through the woodwork like a slippery slime that penetrates and destroys the brain cells

combusting synapses

deluding time 

First signs are somewhat scary voices cheering 

Creepy looks from strangers keep leering 

the families love disappearing 

The disheveled clothes appearing

the stink and smell of the abandoned hope

empty pockets 

no dough for dope

 to stifle the sounds of the last goodbyes familiar ties 

dreams gone awry

Paranoid police distributing the law handcuffs clinking no eyes blinking

“Make room fella the Nimbyness princess is coming!”

"Pull up your pants!" “Not in my backyard!”

"Come on lady give me a dollar I wont holler or bother or stab you to death with bad breath!"

“Waz up homeboy homegirl are you getting ready to be going to Mars to listen to the stars?”

 Hey the Apocalypse is coming and the voices keep on Drumming directions to slit my throat 

Because Jesus saves 

and Armageddon has slaves 

Hey it's time for the parade 

are your genitals made from clay?

"is this the real life or is it fantasy caught in a landslide no escape from reality open your eyes look up to the sky and see 

I'm just a poor boy 

nothing really matters to me"

Crystal Cove


By Valerie Larsen


I’m looking back at sharks shoved off, The Beaten Bloody Heads I Faced. Santiago and I, Winners?
Or mere survivors of the Race.

With nothing but a skeleton,
We show the Glories and the Horrors, What might’ve been or could’ve been: The Pyrrhic victories of Wars.

However one assesses grief,
The credit one might give for a life
Still lived—which often might have died— It can’t compare to the Relief from Strife.

For now on this Laguna Beach, The waves repeat that I am safe. And I’m so thankful for my friends Who wouldn’t let me stay the waif.

So I marvel at what I see
And not just see, but what I Feel, Each paint-by-number color and hue, Every Blue, Green, White, and Teal.

Remembering all the times I’ve shared These sights and sounds with Heroin, King Alcohol, Jester-O-Joint,
Queen Depression, who did me in...

They were friends who nearly killed me Who deadened me beyond belief.
And when I finally cared—I fled— Instead, to Dr. Brown for relief.

Now, with no possessions to parade, I’m like the pelican at sea,
Dipping into the abundance, Wondering what’s out there for me.

Valerie Larsen is a retired high school English teacher of 37 years teaching in California. She now writes poetry in a writing group in the San Gabriel Valley and spends time working out and volunteering at a house of prayer. She is a recovering alcoholic with 27 years sobriety and she laments, “hold my head high with that acknowledgment. I have had chronic pain, emotional traumas, and addiction as part of my life. I have written all of my life and as an adult, spirituality has intersected with pain in my very personal poetry.  It has become a therapy for me as well as an art form”.

Oh, The Horror, The Horror

By: IE Carlo

13 April 2021

Oh, the horror, the horror

Black is beautiful but not in a casket today 

Black is beautiful if allowed to say it with faith

Black is beautiful if left to live in this space

Oh, the horror, the horror

Yes an apocalypse of horror

Black means death is on its way

Not a day goes by where death means another black soul will die today

Here in this god forsaken country of wealth we die for being black not one not two but countless blacks because of the color of our skin and we wait for death to rejoice in that kingdom of god given to us by people who know nothing of that god they profoundly say of their faith...the power of the state is greater than the power of the people and yet it is written that the power belongs to the people but not for black people and their race…

Oh, the horror, the horror

Sad is the state for we of the black race are here to stay and we of the yellow race are here to stay and we of the brown race are here to stay and we of the red race are here to stay and we we we will stay

Regardless of the horror, the horror

Oh, the horror, the horror of the state

Meaningless consequences for those who kill those of another race and yet we of a different race search for a way to live in this state with some kind of faith not by way of retribution but that faith given to us by this white race

Oh, the horror, the horror   

Of being black brown red yellow in this state

Of horror, oh, the horror, the horror

Ismael (East) Carlo, poet, actor begins on the streets of East Harlem, el barrio whose monica of “East” happened due to others not being able to pronounce the name, Is-Ma-El…

East, considers himself more a storyteller than a poet, although at times he gets lucky and poetry emerges from his stories...

For more about East, visit IMDB. Paz en Vida

CRAZY

4-28-21

3:00pm

by Mary Cheung

I must be crazy to want to fall,

So deep there's no safe return, 

Least my heart tumble and fall.

Watch my sanity burn.

I must be crazy,  to think I'll find,

Good looks, loving and kind.

But I keep searching,  with hopes that someday I'll find....

That 1 in a million, that'll click into place.

We fit like a glove;  

I knew you had good taste.

I must be crazy to put up with your moods.

The one that swings from 1 end to the next.

Bewitched again,  I'm under your hex.

I must be crazy to put myself through it over and over again. 

The really high, highs

And really low, lows that never seem to end.

I must be crazy to come back to this brutal love.

I'm a paper thin Chinese lantern, hanging from above.

Handle me with care, 

because I easily tear.

Blazing brightly, 

I'm a beacon to guide you to me.

I must be crazy, 

to put it out there, for everyone to see....

Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

“Oahu no ka oi”—

by Sarah Hunter

The moon touches the tops of the Pali’s. The reflection of its white roundness reverberates on the ocean, waves lap to the shore in a rhythmic “s-h-h- h-h.” The pounding waves hit the sand in a soft tango. A music of their own.
Oahu nights. 1974-1980.

The smell of the plumeria drifts through my classroom window in Manoa Valley. Filipino, Japanese, Chinese and Hawaiian teenagers arrive in the morning to prop their surfboards against my classroom door. None of them are particularly fond of Shakespeare or the poetry of John Keats, but that’s what I’m serving up, and that’s what I care about. I’m young, and I don’t know any better. I think they should be “exposed” to the great Caucasian writers. I’m probably right, because they don’t look like they’re suffering too much.

In the early evening I drive up the road to Mt. Tantalus. The mountain of green. My trusty Volkswagen putters up the side of the mountain. Eucalyptus and ginger blossoms waft through the night air. Fleetwood Mac plays on the radio. “... and if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again. I can still hear you sayin’ you would never break the chain...” I’m forever young, and I will never be old.

This is a dream. Light, sun, light again, moonlight. Orange and purple sunsets with deep pinks and spattered gold. Time is suspended. There is no reason to sleep. Morning is gentle and soft, filled with misty rain and scattered rainbows.

And even if there’s no love, it’s hard to be sad in Paradise. The green and blue and yellow and orange and red of nature always remind me that I’m alive. Completely alive. I’m leading with all my senses.. I can dance all night and study all day, work all day, stay electrifyingly awake. And night sings seductive songs over the trade winds. The winds tell me that morning will never come, and if it does, it will be tender. It won’t hit me between the eyes,

Mountains, ocean, sand, gardenias, orchids. It’s a never-ending reverie.
Life offers eras that move us forward. It offers time to slow down, to reflect. To be young and naive in the Islands is a gift. Gifts are to be unwrapped, opened up and cherished. I do and I did. Oahu no ka oi. Oahu, “nothing better.”

Sarah Hunter began creating characters and dramas in her neighborhood backyard at age eight back in West Lafayette, Indiana. From graduate school to her time in Los Angeles, Sarah remains a dedicated student of classical and modern theater.

She has dubbed Japanese cartoons, done voice-over work, had her original plays produced in Los Angeles and Pasadena, and continues acting, creating, writing and dreaming. The most important thing for Sarah is the continuous re-inventing of herself each time she writes another play or TV episode. Working with Sandra Cruze, on TWO HEADS ARE BETTER PRODUCTIONS has allowed her to continue writing episodes and acting, working on her one- woman solo shows which she has presented at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA and her “Dogs are Better Than People” at the Whitefire Theater in West Los Angeles. She will be presenting this piece a second time, as she has been awarded “The Best of the Solo Fest.” Stay tuned for June 12 at 7PM.

Sarah loves writing and performing in the episodes in “We’re Not Dead Yet” (WNDY) and enjoys watching them on the YOUTUBE channel. She and her creative partner, Sandra Cruze have been awarded 5 wins for their series. They are having a ball and definitely not “dead yet.”

Life is good.

POEM by G. Billie Quijano

We are hungry for that touch

Hungry for that kiss

How many more months till we reach that bliss?

Contemplating suicide

Hurtful thoughts may not subside

How do we stave off depression?

All the while lifting oppression

Give me your hand

As we all take a stand

Joy is constant

Laughter infectious

Contemplating suicide

It doesn’t have to hide

Keep moving towards the bliss

And you won’t wait long for that kiss

G. Billie Quijano- bio

“Everyday I have new mind, body, emotional, psychological discoveries, a soul awakening, soul retrieval. A new journey of learning, self-compassion. I am my own eco-system, complete with fears, phobias, grief, passion, a soaring imagination, depression, vegan, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, joy, la vida loca, my third eye, ruby red lips, bruja, camera in one hand, brushes, needles and thread in the other. Palabra Mujer.Feminista. Executive Chola. I observe what surrounds me with awe. I am curious and delighted about nature. The cosmos are astounding and mysterious. My thesaurus is one of my best friends. Gente is my muse. Sometimes my brain is a clown car, most of the time it’s a working machine. What makes me happy, memories of east los, jazz, tamales, mota, true love, colores, guacamole, funny ass people and my camaradas.”

Genuine 

By Jacqueline Ray Phillips

The Poetess Reigns

She says...

Soft & Tender

Are The Heat of The Tongue 

The Soft & The Tender

The Membranes 

Do Flowingly

Love Thee 

An Excursion of the Mind

Dedicated...

Until The End 

Until The End of Time

The Science of The Mind

Meditates...

Onto The Membranes 

Of My Soul

Exciting Are The Energies 

Of Love Flowing Strong 

Through & With 

Synchronized Passions

The Exotic & Erotic 

Experience of Inner Peace 

Everlasting Lasting 

And Forever 

Closer and Closer 

To Love’s Bright Lights 

AMPLIFIED 

Every Time 

It’s Genuine...

The Poetess Reigns aka JackieRay Phillips is Creator of The Poetry of Justice Show, Where Social Consciousness Meets the Arts. The Show is designed to spark the interest and awareness of social diversity ranging from arts, entertainment and social justice at large. Catch The Poetry of Justice Show Saturday nights 6:00-8:00pm PST Live @Yikesradio.com and @AcceleratedRadio.net in addition to all other podcast streaming platforms. You may also view and subscribe to the Show’s YouTube channel @The POJ Show. Follow us on IG @The POJ Show and FB @ The Poetry of Justice Show and JackieRay Phillips.

DARK

By Richard Russeth

Loss is troublesome,

but to let it

bother you,

I don’t know.

In the end we are all,

all of us, always lost,

in places we would,

on any other day,

recognize.

Being lost

can be a tragedy,

being found

perhaps

the more so.

The world is large,

I want to see it

before it

goes dark.

Richard Russeth is a poet, photographer, baker and magician who lives in Ohio with his wife Charlotte

May Poem: 2021

By Ronald G. Carrillo

Sometimes that Blanche DuBois mood overtakes me

When I feel the world is wicked

I seek refuge that I know I must discover on my own

Relief from the cruelty of this time that no lover can give me

When I was young I wanted to run away from it

I knew this planet was not my true home

Only a learning ground that could advance my spirit

I now understand the polarity of my environment

But its violence and hate still frighten me

Rendering me to that place where I seek escape

But then the dark clouds clear and I see my way to you

Our soft time overcoming these pandemic blues

Fast feet developing a lover’s speech

And tranquil nesting while investing in love

Years of sobriety have steadied me

Years of waiting have given me gratitude

My perseverance has only deepened my regard

Mr. Blue you were always my man

Your rainbow heart generous

Your Los Angeles eyes soulful

My past beaus echo my road to you

They were loving sometimes naughty stepping stones

Romance has rough edges

Its challenges only matures love

The aging process of our youth mellows our drama

Oh Papa man come unto me and lovers we will be

Free from the LBGTQ label just me and you

No politics not public approval no marrying

I know we are caring one for the other

Just holding hands and washing our dinner dishes

Kisses and planning many more tomorrows

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.

Thanks for joining! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

With great hope for a loving and accepting future!

Love,

Linda Kaye

Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.

Linda Kaye writes poetry, produces spoken word and art events and produces a poetry column POETS PLACE for the online publication LAARTNEWS throughout the Los Angeles area.

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park .The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique and Zweet Café in Eagle Rock. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

Her most recent project a rap music video in collaboration with Mary Cheung, “ERACE-ISM” can also be seen on youtube. https://youtu.be/NfrbveNUBgg

.

Linda Kaye is a native Angelino who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology and social work. Linda, now retired was working for the last seven years as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 30+ years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

April Poet's Place!!

POETS PLACE

APRIL 2021

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH, YO!!

APRIL is blooming! Achoo!!! It’s also the month of vaccinations for all of us! Go get em!! We will all congregate again soon with hugs galore! We have a host of writers for the month of lauded poetry. POETRY!!! THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!! “The art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts. Literary work in metrical form; verse. Prose with poetic qualities. Poetic qualities however manifested: the poetry of simple acts and things”. Dictionary.com. WOW!! Yes this is so true!! We must continue on this beautiful stream of consciousness and elevate our thoughts to share with the world!! Or at least here in Poets Place!! LOL!!! Let’s move towards brighter futures with the expressions of hope written in poetry!!! So we can “watch the sorrels”, and to gloriously witness justice for George Floyd! “Will we aspire and achieve further development” and “call forth our better angels” As Ronald Carrillo hopes. What can we promise ourselves Mary Cheung? To love and cherish our fellow man as we do ourselves, or should do for ourselves? “Hold your sword high! Be ready!” Find spirituality in poetry, or as Ismael ‘East’ Carlo says, “…Salsa is the salvation of our times!” Baila!

On a hot summer night

By Linda Kaye

On a hot summer night whilst the crescent moon shone in the distant night with the sweat pouring off his neck in the bright light

stars hidden in the heat and mist of his passion

and time was alluded

hint of sarcasm colluded between his sheets of speculation

amongst all the adoration

there was no hesitation

Now I turn My Attention to that of Music

By: IE Carlo

14 June 2019

Puerto Rico and its musicianship...is a way of life!  Growing up in New York City, listening to the likes of Bobby Capo, Carlos Pizzaro, Daniel Santos, La Sonora Matancera, Johnny Rodriguez brother to Tito Rodriguez, Milta Silva, Trio Los Panchos, Perez Prado, Tito Puente, and as well music of Mexico, by many of their artists was a way of life at my house.  There wasn’t a home (apartment) without music that I can remember in those tenements. Mother knew all the songs played on the radio, commercials included...meaning that music was a way of life for me and others growing up, there in that concrete city of New York.  

Many friends today tell me they were allowed radio time; not in my house, mother was in total control of the radio.  If I wanted to listen to radio and that of the Green Hornet, or the Shadow, I had to visit with my friend Bataan next door...the radio was for music, and mothers’ entertainment, period! Not that I mind; being I was always on the streets, and there as well music blasted from Mita’s candy store, my grandmother! No matter where you went in el barrio music was there to greet you.  

Up on 110th Street and 5th Ave was the Park Plaza.  Where the best of the worlds Latino/Hispanic musical orchestras played, and where fights between Cubans and Puerto Ricans ensued because of whose music was the better.  

Which brings me to the music of today; the music I enjoy, salsa.  Someone asked me about the salsa music of Puerto Rico the other day, all I could think to say was, it’s a way of life, almost a religion…

If you happen to visit Puerto Rico, you’ll find a festival at some interval of your stay.  Music is everywhere, from regeton to rock, heavy metal, punk, but the biggest concerts are SALSA…  

Salsa, the biggest dance craze on the planet, and its artists; Tito Nieves, Tito Vega, Jose el Canario, El Gran Combo, Gilberto SantaRosa, Franky Vasquez, Mark Anthony, Bobby Valentin, Willie Rosario, La Sonora Poncena, Roberto Rohena and His Apollo Sound. etc,etc,etc…

Comparisons I make none, other than to say they’re all good, and only to point out differences in that of sound and compositions written to that of the clave beat.  I’m not a musician so I won’t get into the breakdown of musical notation or rhythm patterns, but I am a dancer, a street dancer!  I learned my steps from watching Louie Maquina, Carlos, and Cuban Pete of the Palladium days. The rhythms of the music of those streets, the rhythms mixed together giving our music an intricate mixer, nowhere else could this music have developed being it encompassed all the rhythms brought to this great city of New York City. 

Of course we must not forget its origins in that of clave, (the beat).  Originally the clave was nothing more than what held the old wooden ships together.  Clave was used in place of nails (pegs), and due to the wood it was made from, it had a unique sound that basically gave rise to the total sound of today. Two sticks and a drum made of wood and animal skin used for communications. 

Africa, via way of Cuba gave the bottom to this rhythm as I understand it.  Meaning the foundation, but the Puerto Rican sound is the one that has the weight of the times’.  The New York City sound came via a number of rhythmic sounds that only a city like New York can render or inspire, and produce. 

Puerto Rico’s musical sound has what one can call a magical sound that wants and needs those listening to move to the (and just slightly faster that our sister’s Cuba sound.) fast sway and rhythm of that sound, you dance it in the isles, on the streets, parks, and it’s called salsa, because it’s sexy and sultry, and it gives that basic feeling of freedom the body so desperately needs in a world half mad with frustration and demoralized.  Salsa is the salvation of our times, 

  I laugh to myself wishing this to be true.  I’ve mentioned the fact of the dance craze around the globe, it’s happening...and salsa leads the way.  Salsa allows you to feel the sway of your partner, you dance it together, never separated other than for that freedom I allure to.  You feel her/him in that flow, it’s magic…

There’s also the physical condition that salsa brings.  When traveling you will always have a place to meet people close to that same salsa mentality, like I said, salsa, it’s almost spiritual.              

           

Ismael (East) Carlo, poet, actor begins on the streets of East Harlem, el barrio whose monica of “East” happened due to others not being able to pronounce the name, Is-Ma-El…

East, considers himself more a storyteller than a poet, although at times he gets lucky and poetry emerges from his stories...

For more about East, visit IMDB. Paz en Vida

High Wind Warning

By Richard Russeth

The national weather service has issued

a high wind warning here in Ohio.

It says the power will go out tonight.

Trees will fall. Flashlights should be ready.

Because without light, life is hard

and maneuvering is difficult.

Because life is hard enough.

Because light is the sword

that cuts through darkness,

even just before the dawn.

Hold your sword high,

Be ready.

Richard Russeth is a poet, photographer, baker and magician who lives in Ohio with his wife Charlotte

Christmas in a Warm Bolinas Home

By Lee Boek

Skyward Ho

Watching the Sorrels

Run the ridges of the green land.

Riding the netted white cloud

We float above

The Blue Pacific Waters

Holding the Christ child

As nymphets dance

In the swirling Grateful canyons

Touching our feet to the soft white sand

We share the warm sunshine.

Lee Boek, born and raised in the California Bubble, “first I was a teen-age evangelist whose ministry intersected with the civil rights movement while preaching in the southern United States. Then turning to the education I was warned never to get, to the anti war movement of the sixties, the environmental movement of the seventies and today. During this time I became a performer of satirical stories and sketches mostly based on my own life experiences. For the last nearly forty years I have been a member of and/or the Artistic Director of Public Works Improvisational Theatre”.

Mister Floyd

By G. Billie Quijano

There was no time to hang a noose

They took him down

So he would not get loose

All he did was spend a 20 dollar bill

Who knew it would be used against his will

Why was the color of his skin,

A murderous sin?

A knee in the neck

When you are suppose to serve and protect

It was an execution

There was another solution

She shouted “please let me take his pulse”

But they made it false

9 minutes 29 seconds never to return

They did it for the public eye

We choked back our fear

We could not sigh

George you narrated your death

We witnessed your last breath

The whole world is watching, you fools

Darnella filmed you, that was her tool

It is genocide

Their hate won’t subside

We won’t rest

And you all be put to the test

Will justice be served?

Or will they lose their nerve

If peace is to be attainted

Our emotions will not be contained

Murder 2 is demanded

Keep that assassin remanded

9 minutes 29 seconds never to return

G. Billie Quijano-Bruja, Mestiza, self taught Artista, Fotographer and Poeta, recently published in Modern Latina magazine.

I was born in the Corazon of East Los. The landscape of my childhood were elements of L.A. urban life. Cool concrete, balmy nights, vibrant colors, sounds of girl groups, low riders and Trio Los Panchos. Mexico was all around me, surrounded by calla lillies, cactus and sunflowers. My neighbor Rafael’s rooster was my alarm clock. Olvera Street was my playground. Saturday’s breakfast was the delicious aromas of menudo, carnitas and freshly made tortillas de maiz from our local tortilleria on Whittier Blvd. My work is my desire to keep my ancestors traditions, history and vision alive.

America Hybrid???

By Ronald G. Carrillo

A national cancer

A constitutional disaster

Creating helter-skelter

A Summer of riots and swelter

The officer had his foot on Mr. Floyd’s neck

What the heck

He couldn’t breathe

The liberals still seethe

Freedom once again hanging from trees

A racial disease

The last squeeze of hatred

Finally acknowledging all humanity is sacred

Black America is endangered

Being black in America is being a stranger

The hand of peace and democracy never extended

Slavery, segregation, Jim Crow never mended

Post civil war a whitewash pretended

Emancipation not truly defended

Wounds so deep swept under our national rug

Cleaning house but still left the bugs

The nation dividing

Two worlds colliding

Liberty in her harbor crying

Good people still trying

The citizenry in pain

But still riding Liberty’s train

Adding such a strain on democracy

The doubters yelling hypocrisy

People of color living second class lives

On the fringe without forks and knives

In a country that could have done so much

But greed got in the way of the rush

Toward world power and center stage

Let me sleep in your mercy Lord

Let me continue to dream in your word

Bring forth prosperity for a new age

The best laid plans can still be conceived

Time for democracy to open her cage

Release full potential to be engaged

Coda: Our past leads us into the future

But the present defines that forward movement

The temperature and design of the country has vastly changed

Since the constitutional times of Jefferson and Hamilton

Slavery became segregation

Segregation became suppression

But never was EQUAL justice achieved

Legal white supremacy in the South ruled the day

Will we aspire and achieve further development

Or divide into the horrible inhumanity

Of an American caste system

We are truly better than this

Call forth our better angels that President Lincoln attested to

The husk of a founding white only constitution

Hides the fruit of a hybrid experiment in government

I await a new harvest for all our people

We continue to seek the dream of Dr. King

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.

BROKEN PROMISES 

12-11-19

3:44 a.m.

By Mary Cheung 

Your promises mean nothing,

Because they're just words.

Your words have no value,

Because they're just that.

Stolen my trust,

by your charms,

By your looks.

By ideals of who you are,

From words spoken.

You made your way inside,

& Inspired me to show even more.

once given freely, but lingeringly, 

I hesitate now.

Cuz You show me my worth is zero,

And hope is a myth.

But then, I'm a dreamer.

And here I thought you were real.

For to say what you meant,

And to do what you said.

But your promises hold pain now.

Sharp pins digging in.

A pale coat of yellow,

Painted with flecks of distrust.

You once filled me with giddy anticipation,

Brimming with nervous joy.

But your words have no value,

Because they're just that.

I toss and turn, anxious to lose this feeling,

Cuz it steals away my joy.

But the only thing I lose is sleep

And my naivety.

Your promises are empty,

Is it time to pack up and go?

For your words have no value.

Because they are just that......

Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

⚜The Possibility

By Jacqueline Ray Phillips

The Poetess Reigns

Precious

Pure

Essence of Love

To the Mature Mind

A mind that's mine

Connected to me

A mind that's mine

Wired to be FREE...

From Thee

Or Me

What not to be

Is it me or is it thee??

The possibility

Of She Is strong

Was it so wrong?

To Love.... And Not to be

Only the possibility

Of She!

Only the possibility

Of Me!

To be made Free

Only she can be

Through the Possibility

Of being me

In touch with you

Is what's left to do

Inside of self

Is the definite wealth

Of living FREE

NOT to be bothered

By me

Is the Key

To happiness

And being FREE

Of the Possibility

Of Being ME!

I'm FREE...

The Poetess Reigns aka JackieRay Phillips is Creator of The Poetry of Justice Show, Where Social Consciousness Meets the Arts. The Show is designed to spark the interest and awareness of social diversity ranging from arts, entertainment and social justice at large. Catch The Poetry of Justice Show Saturday nights 6:00-8:00pm PST Live @Yikesradio.com and @AcceleratedRadio.net in addition to all other podcast streaming platforms. You may also view and subscribe to the Show’s YouTube channel @The POJ Show. Follow us on IG @The POJ Show and FB @ The Poetry of Justice Show and JackieRay Phillips.

Thanks for joining! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

With great hope for a loving and accepting future!

Love,

Linda Kaye

Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.

Linda Kaye writes poetry, produces spoken word and art events and produces a poetry column POETS PLACE for the online publication LAARTNEWS throughout the Los Angeles area.

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park .The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique and Zweet Café in Eagle Rock. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

Her most recent project a rap music video in collaboration with Mary Cheung, “ERACE-ISM” can also be seen on youtube. https://youtu.be/NfrbveNUBgg

.

Linda Kaye is a native Angelino who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology and social work. Linda, now retired was working for the last seven years as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 30+ years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

March is Here!! Poet's Place!

POETS PLACE

MARCH 2021

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

Hello everyone!

In the last hundred years, and probably much longer than that, women in America have had to overcome the oppression forced upon them by male belief systems that had been indoctrinated by religious ideology, as well as perpetuated by society’s acceptance of the male dominance to control women. Many scholars have written extensively about the man’s need to have power and control over women due, mostly, to their animosity that women produce sexual desires in men, that sex is “sinful” which meant that women “the weaker sex” controls that power, thus men couldn’t have complete control over them. This need to control, we have seen throughout human history and are evident in the conquering and the subjugation towards people of color, the disenfranchised, lower socioeconomic status, immigrants, and especially towards women. Freud believed that sex is the prime motivator and common denominator for all of us. Was he right?

That aside, we have a woman VP! It’s about time! There are women in “power” positions all over the world! I hope we can finally see more women in positions that can make a difference in our society towards the greater good, for all people. Let’s hope they aren’t throttled!

Let poetry be our great divide from dismissiveness!

A woman of her word

By Linda Kaye

A woman of her word paves the road with directional signs pointing forward then letting go. 

A woman of her word carries bountiful insightful messages that sound the drums of conscious beings harmonizing with the whispers of faith. 

A woman of her word respects the guardians of wishes doesn't dispel hopes and praises dreams. 

A woman of her word makes plans and follows through giving light a shining path lifting spirits ringing bells keeping promises protecting secrets saving lives. 

A woman of her word 

Curates peace

Supports humanity

Celebrates friends 

Listens intently 

Questions sparingly 

Nurtures success

Repels prejudice

A Woman of her word loves you with all her heart with the depths of her soul with the threads of gold spiraled lovingly through gifts of freedom, to be

Love Unlost in the Fields of Magnetic North

By Rich Ferguson

 

Think of love

as magnetic north

should you ever find yourself lost.

 

Think of love

as the uncivilized magic

of the present moment,

the unreined beauty of possibility,

the wild & wondrous music of wolves

howling in the hills

of anything-can-happen.

 

Guarding that love:

 

our sweat, blood & muscles;

heaving, blossoming

with the changing seasons.

 

Such ardent & arduous work

we offer forth

to cherish one another's heart—

 

life’s most powerful & precious light

Rich Ferguson is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet who has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians. Ferguson has been selected by the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc. (NBPF), to serve as the State of California Beat Poet Laureate (Sept. 2020 to Sept. 2022). He is a featured performer in the film, What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, and others. His newest poetry collection, Everything Is Radiant Between the Hates, is now available on Moon Tide Press.

* The Power of Never

By Lee Boek

The ache is deep

Or is it the frustration

Angst

Pushing uselessly for something

That cannot be

The way you want it to be

It can’t happen

Acceptance of that is impossible

The Power of Never

Never the less

Make it happen

This is why we have our own

Little Universes

Even if you want it and it can’t happen

It still is happening

In your head,

It’s part of you already

You won’t let go.

Congratulations!

You can envision how good life would be with it

If only things could be the way you see it

A perfect spot, like a perfect phone call

Everything and Everyone

Complying

“Never Again is Now”

The disgusting sight of concentration camps in the US, again; a genuine repeat; as if as a country we haven’t learned a thing. We have a hard time, always a struggle to make progress for human rights, and against racism and sexism.

We can somehow justify these concentration camps, or, at least, tolerate them. Otherwise, the streets would be full of protest, like in Chile where the people hit the streets by the thousands just because the subway fares were raised.

In the US the streets could be full because immigrant children are being taken, separated and even stolen, from their parents and incarcerated, locked up, innocent children, often in , “for profit” concentration camps.

Only misuse and abuse can follow, because the plan and the perceived need for the plan is wicked and concocted, racist, opportunistic, criminal and fascist. It is wrong for humanity, for our survival.

We must learn to live together in peace, motivated by more than greed, personal gain and dominance.

The need to be “top dog”

Dominance,

“American Exceptionalism”,

The Greatest Nation,

“Great Again”,

The Race Bait again

Like a Big Fish

Hooked on the horror

Mega Wannabe Superior

The minute you think you’re Superior

You drop

To Mega

Inferior.

KKK

These kids are going to grow up one day

Remembering how you took them away

Put them in a cage

A cage

Like animals

A K K Kage

Koncentration Kamps for Kids

Actual Born Children.

Lee Boek, born and raised in the California Bubble, “first I was a teen-age evangelist whose ministry intersected with the civil rights movement while preaching in the southern United States. Then turning to the education I was warned never to get, to the anti war movement of the sixties, the environmental movement of the seventies and today. During this time I became a performer of satirical stories and sketches mostly based on my own life experiences. For the last nearly forty years I have been a member of and/or the Artistic Director of Public Works Improvisational Theatre”.

FASTER

9-22-20

9:00 a.m.

By Mary Cheung

Like a speeding bullet we want to jump the timeline and make things go faster.

We want to get our packages faster.

We want to get our food faster.

We want to get paid faster.

So impatient is our society...

There’s no time to slow down!

We want it now, from the minute we push the button.

We expect to turn around and have it in our hands.

Our movies are on demand and if we could,

our lives would be on demand as well!

Ah heck! just about.

I mean, we tell Alexa and she does it for us pronto!

But...how can we get it faster?

How can we transfer our desires,

to thought,

to reality in a second?

Cuz 2 seconds is too long.

We want it faster!

Mary Cheung is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

⚜Intermittently Me...

By Jackie Ray Phillips

Intermittent pieces of ecstasy

Sexily existing in the galaxy

Through this life

The passion and the energy

Seductively

Invitingly

Lovingly... Free

Is romance

The dance

Through space?

No time

No race

To face

The chase

Of Love

Peace and harmony

Adoringly

Through me

Touching the heart

The tender

The seductive part

At the start

Of something new

That only few

Can do

To me

Are you with me?

Intermittently

Jackie

The Poetess Reigns

2-28-2021

The Poetess Reigns aka JackieRay Phillips is Creator of The Poetry of Justice Show, Where Social Consciousness Meets the Arts. The Show is designed to spark the interest and awareness of social diversity ranging from arts, entertainment and social justice at large. Catch The Poetry of Justice Show Saturday nights 6:00-8:00pm PST Live @Yikesradio.com and @AcceleratedRadio.net in addition to all other podcast streaming platforms. You may also view and subscribe to the Show’s YouTube channel @The POJ Show. Follow us on IG @The POJ Show and FB @ The Poetry of Justice Show and JackieRay Phillips.

Oda a Brujas

By G. Billie Quijano

La Playa proved to be a vortex of love

It is written in the codices, hereinabove

La Bruja Magica entwined with the sirens of the sea

Flores, salvia, cartas all medicina for the we

The waves spoke, ebb and flow

Peace and healing make our hearts aglow

The universe released its golden ribbons

Dreams attached and guidance given

Third eye opens, intuition a gift

Read the antepasados glyphs

El Colibri flys high in vibration

Abrazos, besos, intentions, illuminations

G. Billie Quijano-Bruja, Mestiza, self taught Artista, Fotographer and Poeta, recently published in Modern Latina magazine.

I was born in the Corazon of East Los. The landscape of my childhood were elements of L.A. urban life. Cool concrete, balmy nights, vibrant colors, sounds of girl groups, low riders and Trio Los Panchos. Mexico was all around me, surrounded by calla lillies, cactus and sunflowers. My neighbor Rafael’s rooster was my alarm clock. Olvera Street was my playground. Saturday’s breakfast was the delicious aromas of menudo, carnitas and freshly made tortillas de maiz from our local tortilleria on Whittier Blvd. My work is my desire to keep my ancestors traditions, history and vision alive.

"For You, With Love, Your Pen" –

By Austin Musick

All you do is use me

Never giving back

Use me up til there's nothing left 

The toss me back to black

Or worse yet you infuse me with your dreams, your rage, your pain

There it goes, my heart, again

Bleeds for you across this page.

Ah, but now you're feeling empty

and so am I in fact

Still, you loan me out to someone else as if I'm still in tact

But I gave and gave, gave it all to you

There's nothing more that I can do

And without your hand holding round my waist

There's nothing more to prove

Austin Musick, also known as Unitsi Ai, is a poet, lyricist, singer, and actor, originally from East Tennessee, now living in the Los Angeles area with her two daughters, two cats, one rabbit, and her main man/son she never got to have, her dog, Romeo.

With Love and Gratitude,

Austin

March Poem: 2021

By Ronald G. Carrillo

Always fighting demons

Trying not to lose my center

Staying on track with God

Paying dues and being an earthly squatter

On these streets of blues in L.A.

Temperatures getting hotter and people growing colder

It’s seldom the news is good in these pandemic times

But being a senior now I’m still learning

Staying on the straight and narrow

It’s harrowing each time I fall

My life roots are getting stronger

My godly instincts are deeper

My passions clearer and purer

I move forward surer

I have sparrow wings and God feeds me

Now I see you clearly

Your countenance is reflected in my eyes

My soul enlightens my vision of you

I had a false image of Eros

Love was then like chattel

And my youth was heretical

Like the Israelites I too was wandering in a desert of lust

Idolizing the golden calf of sin

Until I was reborn in a spiritual maturity

Now Eros has developed into a lush union

Reciprocal, having common ground, ever developing

Lust has been vanquished and exiled from our communion

My point of view altered and revigorated

I stand tall looking at you in the hues of Spring

My innocence returned as if it had never left me

Sending you thought kisses of my desire

Romantic heartbeat waves sent to love’s ethereal realm

Connect, respond, pickup, feel, inspire

2021 is our time a new crop on the vine soon to harvest

Correspond to me through the clouds

Send doves and yellow roses of friendship

We will build love’s foundation like romantic architects

I am a veteran of the heart wars

I was aching from battle scars

And truces that did not last

Treaties that were broken

Fidelity dissolving way too fast

Allies that betrayed me

Lovers that were players

Tom cats that could not be domesticated

My innocence faded in jealousy and depression

Having no control over a phenomenon that could not be controlled

Waiting for a new baptism

Coda: Reset for a new year romance

Resolution invitation to my heart

2021 muse of destiny

No mutiny on my horizon of love

Lucky Valentine path blooming

All-consuming Romeo yearning

No void in the heavens of learning

Perfume of desire speaking

Amorous dialect interconnecting

Detecting my complement

Awaiting tender passion through union

New year solution and communion

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.

Thanks for joining! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

With great hope for a healthier future!

Love,

Linda Kaye

Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.

Linda Kaye writes poetry, produces spoken word and art events and produces a poetry column POETS PLACE for the online publication LAARTNEWS throughout the Los Angeles area.

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park .The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique and Zweet Café in Eagle Rock. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

Her most recent project a rap music video in collaboration with Mary Cheung, “ERACE-ISM” can also be seen on youtube. https://youtu.be/NfrbveNUBgg

.

Linda Kaye is a native Angelino who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology and social work. Linda, now retired was working for the last seven years as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 30+ years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

February Poet's Place - Love Edition

POETS PLACE

FEBRUARY 2021

LOVE EDITION

Hello! February is here and it’s the time of love! Love sharing, love seeking and love giving. Valentines for our hearts and souls. Although it’s a difficult time for so many people who have lost loved ones, I’m hoping we can find the love in our hearts to send them some so needed LOVE. In any form. Be it cards, phone calls, face-time, Zoom calls, carrier pigeons. However you can, make the effort. It will be truly appreciated.

What does love look like to you? Love isn’t wrapped in cellophane tied with a neat bow, it, I believe, develops from those around us, family, friends, schoolmates, coworkers, teachers, anyone who has touched our lives, and who have shared experiences and commitments towards our personal growth, our welfare, encouraging our spirits with a recognition and respect for our achievements and sometimes failures as human beings. Unconditional and non-judgmental.

Love is letting go as well as keeping up with relationships by investing your time, your heart with loving attention towards nurturing them. Relationships do not flourish without the needed attention. Like your garden, without water, pruning and nourishment, it will eventually die out.

I have been nurturing this column for the last year and it has grown from just a few submitting poets to a large base of multiple writers from all parts of the country. This month we have poetry of love and stories of love lost. Love for the cinema and the love of lust. Love does come in all shapes and sizes!!

Love

By Linda Kaye

Sensuous and sentimental

easily seduced

often aroused

excited 

ignited and aflame 

frisky but contained 

never aloof 

inviting desiring 

wanting waiting wishing love

UNDONE

12-19-20

11:17 a.m 

By Mary Cheung 

I stare at the card, unopened.

Rejected and returned.

Sits there and refuses to be acknowledged, undisturbed.

Over a year later.

Forces me, to interact. 

Finally I relent and I open the gift I sent.

Ignored and unacknowledged.

Opening the card I made with loving care.

Feels like closure to something that was never meant to be.

Danced on the edges of possibilities,

But never fulfilled...

It's been over a year and I read what I wrote with selection and caution.

Careful, to not expose too much of my heart. 

Least it gets damaged and hurt.

Yet the inaction taken was more damaging than if it had been accepted and than rejected.

It tears me up that I took so much time in carefully crafting my art.

In making the art.

In choosing my words carefully...

Only to have it unread, unseen… By your eyes. 

Eyes that I can't remember any more... 

What color they were.  

Your presence and power bulldozed me, each day.

And pulled me in, in an attraction that was so magnetic and powerful;

I .... couldn't resist. 

Fighting it everyday, 

Was bittersweet and torturous.

And trying to pull away.  Was as futile as two polar opposites that attract,  

stuck on your path. 

I write to you my heart:

- take time in life to appreciate art.

- take time in life to appreciate kindness.

- take time on life to appreciate uniqueness.

- take time in life for gratitude & more.

          Thank you,

I appreciate what you did for me and, 

Hope you appreciate this art I made for you.

And if not, well heck, there's always the beer to help you see the art better

Now it feels done.  I can finally move on and stop thinking bout you. 

Sometimes I still wonder,  

Why, what could of been..

Why nothing ever came of something that seemed so promising and destined. 

Yet never came to be.

I guess I'll never know, 

why you never took a chance and why you didn't see,

All the possibilities that laid in wake,

of walking down a path,

that would lead to me..

Mary Cheung is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

February Poem: 2021

By Ronald G. Carrillo

I have learned from masters

To do the opposite of their ill deeds

Confessing and releasing my sins from the past

Has freed and refreshened my outlook toward the future

Like Paul of Tarsus I have become a new man

Love has taken me on a wayward journey

Through perilous peaks and vulgar valleys

All thrilling and savage but holding my attention

My will not always able to prevent their harsh lessons

This quest and eternal search for Eros

Has sometimes robbed me of my energy and rest

Its beauty at times has taken away my breath

Other times it has insulted me

I was a sapling youth when first love bent my trunk

My leaves were scattered in a whirlwind of lust

I lost my trust and forward direction

An endless erection of longing for that special one

Who no longer existed

After a purple Sophomore year of innocence

My Frank-in-sense spirit dissipated in a false independence

Detours that decorated my gutters with glitter and glitz

A bitter disco season of “I Feel Love”

Played relentlessly to an erotic synthesized beat

And drugs that numbed me

My heart no longer operating

A different appendage dominating my feelings not to feel

A revelation and long appeal toward some good will

My journey devalued my original intent

I cast my jewels before this world

I spent years making little progress only steps

On the silken roads of loneliness

Now in my golden years my tears have dried

But I continue my quest toward Shangri-la

Like Marco Polo I am an adventurer

But like Peter Pan I know love is a Neverland that truly exists

I still view the stars waiting to find you

Where is your constellation perhaps near Venus

My senior eyes will soon detect you

I feel you in the rhythm of new songs

Your muse is there in each line I write

You will be part of my evolving history

From imperfection can come perfection

For love is transcendent, everlasting and divine

Love truly is being in the presence of God

Somewhere among the stars is your light

Reflecting back at me

We will see each other in a glance

Coda: My branches are getting less sturdy

My leaves less green and some have blown away

My roots absorbing less water and nutrients

My memories leading me into the future

The enigmatic Sphinx guarding the Giza plain

I’m becoming an archaeologist of pain and truth

The phoenix will rise again in Eros

No loss in getting older only gaining a new strength

As my concentric rings widen and my patina deepens

No more sorrow only pride in my journey

Creating a personal history

Chronicling my time through love and poetry

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.

A Valentine of Fodder and Regret

By Jane Cantillon

Their pretty lips on my lips and red lipstick smeared around heart shaped mouth and a velvet heart shaped G-string, a gift I will never wear again

tongue curled heart shaped pink a trickle of blood falls painless,

a bittersweet cosmo with a stripped plastic straw next to an empty bottle of Moet upside down in melted ice in bucket next to chocolates half bitten into oozing pink cream. My breasts pop out of heart shaped bra licking sucking wet pussy fucking. Yes, did I forget—and with who?

Oh yes but I heard it was great

and without regret.

There is pain to never forget

what could have been, more babies and the college degrees

or the great jobs I didn’t get.

Or opportunities like fruit ripe let rot on the vine.

But those are just some regrets in time.

A Valentines with no farewell kiss before the end of the war in his head

oh how I regret I never said I loved him. A Valentines I shall never give or forget.

Watching him weeks before the pain in his heart stopped.

Handsome sipping red wine as his broken red capillaries traveled up his shadowed grand nose. His blood shot eyes seemed brighter from the shock treatments but they never helped him forget, no he could not forget.

How strange he took his life on Valentines for all the flowery words arranged as orgasms of rhymes a poet was he

his pain was his only lover and the horror of life exploded his heart in an instant

it was over. “A very strong combination of drugs took him, I inform you with regret.” The small town coroner said, then sighed. “A tragedy I will not soon forget.”

Multi-talented Jane Cantillon is an Emmy-nominated producer, working in daily television for over 24 years. More recently, Cantillon been an improvisational creative writing and arts facilitator who hosts private salon-type workshops and retreats in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree. Designed to help non-writers and artists manifest their dreams through sharing their work, she creates unconventional prompts that develop into moving stories. She also conducts art and music therapy at various assisted living facilities in Los Angeles. Cantillon also fronts an original rock band backed by her husband called The Dick and Jane Family Orchestra, and she produced and directed a critically acclaimed documentary called "The Other Side: A Queer History's Last Call".

February 24, 2021

This poem is dedicated to my beloved John who rode on the wings of hummingbirds onto the cosmos February 24, 2019

Para John

By G. Billie Quijano

There is poetry in my dreams

What does it all mean?

Welcome to my new normal

I refuse to be so formal

In my heart

I explode with art

Colores and palabras guarded by Lola’s rebozo surrounds me

I continue to evolve, a desire to be free,

My soul did not flee

I have screamed at my four walls

My womaness was at war

La Duende flows through my veins

I can still hear my tear drops through the rain

My light shines in the face of dark times

The universe has shown me I am eternally fine

So the poetry in my dreams

Is what John gave and gleamed

As he left for the cosmos

Words glide through osmosis

My heart twists and turns

Ebbs and flows

Love is planted, deepens and grows

Will I love again?

With remnants of the pain?

News at 11, see you then

G. Billie Quijano-Bruja, Mestiza, self taught Artista, Fotographer and Poeta, recently published in Modern Latina magazine.

I was born in the Corazon of East Los. The landscape of my childhood were elements of L.A. urban life. Cool concrete, balmy nights, vibrant colors, sounds of girl groups, low riders and Trio Los Panchos. Mexico was all around me, surrounded by calla lillies, cactus and sunflowers. My neighbor Rafael’s rooster was my alarm clock. Olvera Street was my playground. Saturday’s breakfast was the delicious aromas of menudo, carnitas and freshly made tortillas de maiz from our local tortilleria on Whittier Blvd. My work is my desire to keep my ancestors traditions, history and vision alive.

“Love and Not”

By Ed Burgess

2/1/21

You say

Write a poem

about love

I say

Pass a camel

through a needle

A shot in the arm

An easy love

A dromedary

In an allegory

Senseless Love

With out reason

You Drink me

The cat smiles

The bug smokes

The shark jumps

The tea is spilt

And we are late again

For another date

Now and Forever

And forever for now

We pass the afternoon

In my room

In love

And not

In love

Ed Burgess is an artist, poet and all around bon vivant. He has lived in LA for 20 years and is an active member of the art community. He has exhibited his artwork in many galleries around Los Angeles. He also writes poetry and sometimes reads it publicly.

Golden Memories: Tarantino’s L.A., A Love Letter to My Town

By Randi Lavik

Poet/Documentary Filmmaker/Cabaret Singer/Actress/Fantastic Party-Thrower and Overall Real-Life L.A. Woman Linda Kaye asked me if I might like to contribute a love letter and I’m happy to oblige, because I love her too.

I’m going to start out with a declaration. I’m not in love with new movies. I love the classics. I have a BA in Communications/Radio-TV-Film from Cal State Fullerton’s highly-acclaimed curriculum—yet, learned more about the art of the filmmaker from Turner Classic Movies Hosts Robert Osbourne (RIP great educator/overall lovely man), and the knowledgeable and charming Ben Mankiewicz. After decades of repeat viewings, I feel as though I can finally extrapolate the deep cultural meaning behind Citizen Kane with a decent amount of clarity.

I finally realized I had seen A LOT of old movies, and sadly, subsequently unsubscribed from my beloved Turner Classic Movies channel, after being a faithful viewer for more than a decade. I had literally enjoyed everything in their glorious catalogue; in many cases more than once. That’s an awful lot of celluloid.

With all of that said, in 2019, I very uncharacteristically took a chance with a newly-released Oscar-Nominated, popular pick amongst film-loving pals, and accompanied my teenage son to the cinema, to see Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

I have a love/hate relationship with Tarantino movies; so brilliant, sets so glorious, music so fine, yet dialogue so brutal, and violence so violent.

To illustrate: I recently attempted to watch The Hateful Eight on cable, and the dialogue and acting were so stellar, that I was downright angry at Quentin by the end of the second act or so, no offense Sir, because I just couldn’t get through it. I still don’t know who or what was in the stew. I don’t know who survived that twisted hot mess (with very fine acting and dialogue), but I have my best guesses.

Tarantino’s Jackie Brown was especially gorgeous too; the subtlety was glorious. The long-shot at LAX in the perfectly-preserved mosaic hallway; Pam Grier so posh, exquisitely styled, clicking in her heels while framed by yummy Brady Bunch tones. And such fine acting in Jackie Brown—almost too painfully beautiful for an Empath/Humanist to bear. As a repeat two-out-of-three-acts viewer, I’m frustrated overall, but still a Tarantino fan.

And I can’t lie, I’m a sometimes nervy, yet mostly big ‘bockbockity’ chicken. Once again, during Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I hid under a giant hoodie for the entire third act of a Tarantino film. Whatever was happening, it sure sounded awfully graphic, you bet, and the packed audience sounded absolutely delighted. As much as I like the idea of revenge on the Manson family for terrorizing my hometown, as there’s certainly nothing cute or funny about the crime scene photos—I respectfully ask that Hollywood give me implored and implied, anytime, any day, yes, please and thank you.

I’m a lover, not a fighter, and this piece is about love. Critics agreed and loved Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. This film got major love. Tarantino’s masterpiece was lauded with the Academy Award for Best Screenplay and Best Production Design, among many major awards. Brad Pitt stole scene after scene from a grand cast of kooks. Costumer Arianne Phillips brought Sharon Tate to cinematic life, a joy to behold, in grand style; perfection in tailored Emilio Pucci minis. So much Biba! Quentin made Sharon real, a real lady, so full of life, beyond her untimely demise. Performances a joy to behold. Dialogue so smart.

Now for some major love: The set designers Mr. Tarantino employed, Nancy Haigh and Barbara Ling, made me fall back in love, and cry happy in my seat, remembering the heyday of #mytown. My L.A. The L.A. of my early childhood. LA streets shined like gold back then to a kid with a massive imagination.

How we got to L.A.: My people immigrated to Ellis Island in 1905, after getting kicked out of Russia, and persevered in great style. The extended family followed the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the 1950s. My uncles owned a notorious dive bar on the West Side and my grandparents owned a store full of mid-century modern furnishings in the 1950s, on the fabulous Sunset Strip. We are talking Heywood-Wakefield and Eames. My aunt and uncle helped to integrate housing in L.A. and Orange County during the Civil Rights era.

And I was born in Inglewood, right before the Summer of Love, 1967, in L.A.’s golden era in many ways. My parents ran lunch trucks all over Tarantino’s late 1960s dreamy L.A. while falling in love, bringing hot coffee, breakfast and lunches to factories and film sets all over the city, and raising five small children on the West Side, in the process.

It’s hard to express, looking back now that I have teenagers, what a free time it truly was. Our moms told us to “go out and play” and we did. I couldn’t wait to get on skates, on a bike, in a car. When I could drive, I was on Melrose by noon if I couldn’t find a parking space at the public high school. When my Mom attended Hamilton High in the 1950s, she was on the beach by noon if she couldn’t find a parking space at the public high school.

My petite-yet-epically-brave Mom danced on Hullabaloo and was a cocktail waitress at Gazarri’s Nightclub on the Sunset Strip, eschewing The Doors for her then-favorite house performer, Trini Lopez. She listened to ‘race records’ and ‘the black stations’ in her words, and was a ‘Stones Girl’ through and through. A real outlaw. With five babies at home.

In Westwood, I saw Willy Wonka at the same theater, the AVCO, where Sharon Tate goes to the movies, to take a peek at herself, in a movie. I saw the 1976 epic King Kong at the AVCO too (I had brothers; they got to pick, for better (The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes) or worse (The Towering Inferno).

Century City literally gleamed from my second story bedroom window and I was convinced that King Kong was going show up, swoop his giant hand and whisk me away; it was just a matter of time. Amazingly, and of course only in LA, in my late teens, I appeared in a TV commercial with some girlfriends; cast on-the spot, after a preview screening of Jeff Goldblum’s The Fly II, filmed in front of the very same AVCO Theater.

We lived in the same neighborhood as my extremely fashionable grandparents, right near the National/Overland exit, right off the 10 freeway. As demonstrated beautifully in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, L.A. is such a car town. A radio town. A car radio town. My Pop always drove what is known in this town as a ‘boat’—a massive Cadillac or Lincoln, and tossed us five kids in wherever we fit, seatbelts be damned.

My grandpa drove a late model 1960s Porsche 914, tossing my brother and I into the jump seats where we couldn’t have been happier, so joyously free, loud and squished. He wore a fedora with a feather tucked into the brim. Everyone liked him. I remember when traffic jams only occurred during traditional rush hour. You could get anywhere in twenty minutes, and we did. One older brother spent hours polishing his minitruck with my sister’s pristine white cloth diapers. I marveled at L.A. radio, and still do. Then I got on it. I even worked at KRLA with L.A. radio legend Art Laboe—my Mom’s jam!

My Nana always drove an Oldsmobile and chain smoked Benson and Hedges, Menthols. The ashtray was full of them. A real lady, she wore monogrammed outfits, was always decked, head to toe, was a very early career woman, and after she retired, she ran the heck out of the Board at the Co-Op community where my grandparents lived.

Tarantino’s film shows that people really dressed then. And cared. About looking sharp. I loved and still love hats. Pearls. Brooches. Hosiery. People ironed then. So many layers and much accessorizing. Oh did I love to roam though my Nana’s perfectly organized closet and watch her “put her face on.” Sneakers were for the playground.

My Nana wore Ferragamos, Roger Viviers, and high-heeled Grasshoppers. She used a silver eye pencil. And most certainly enjoyed her VO and soda, always after 5pm, tastefully. Oysters with tabasco sauce and lemon juice on crackers. And taught me to play cards. I’d watch her dreamily fall asleep watching still-handsome James Garner solve mysteries on The Rockford Files.

And she gave quite some speech at my older brother’s very fancy Bar Mitzvah, where the VO & Soda was surely flowing that great day. My big brave brother, “the man” in a three-piece suit—the only family member who actually learned Hebrew to his great credit—holds a beer bottle and cigar in his Bar Mitzvah photos, circa 1974, Westside. L.A. was just so glamorous, so enchanting and free spirited, as captured in the film. Before the ‘pajamafication’ of America. Pre-‘designer tracksuits.’

My Nana dolled up and took me on dates: Fashion shows and High Tea at Bullock’s Wilshire, to the Hollywood Bowl, where her cousin was the Sound Director. We always sat in a fancy box with a picnic and when he came down the concrete aisles to say hello, I felt like my Nana was such a VIP—and oh she was.

She took me to the Biltmore, The Greek, The Farmer’s Market, The Griffith Observatory, LACMA and The Music Center… lucky, mousy, wide-eyed me. I think she picked me because I was too shy then to look grownups in the eyes, let alone say much of anything to annoy. I was such a happy goofy curious kid. L.A. felt very dreamy and wonderful.

I’m glad I let my son pick the movies now, or I might have missed two-thirds of a real gem. Thanks to Quentin Tarantino for reminding me that many of the landmarks I mentioned here still exist, many beautifully preserved, for which I’m grateful. I long to explore my town again, sooner than later, with wide-eyed teenagers in tow, in Mom’s noisy little convertible this round. First stop: Dodger Stadium. We love L.A.

Randi Lavik, L.A. Native

Producer and Host

KX FM 104.7, Community-Supported Radio, Laguna Beach, So Cal, USA

www.kxfmradio.org

www.instagram.com/randi_lavik

www.twitter.com/randi_lavik

Thanks for joining! We will continue to power through and hopefully make this next year more loving and accepting.

With great hope for a healthier future

Love,

Linda Kaye

Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.

Linda Kaye writes poetry, produces spoken word and art events and produces a poetry column POETS PLACE for the online publication LAARTNEWS throughout the Los Angeles area.

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park .The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique and Zweet Café in Eagle Rock. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on YOUTUBE.

Linda Kaye is a native Angelino who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology and social work. Linda, now retired was working for the last seven years as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 25 years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

January Poet's Place - It's a Brand New Year!

POETS PLACE

JANUARY 2021

ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION

HELLO! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

It’s been one year since I started this column. And what a year it has been! AGHHHHH!!! I will not rehash all that has passed and trampled our lives since it was too horrible and devastating to describe. So many people I know have gotten sick and are still in the throes of recovery. I imagine every one of you knows someone who has faced tragedy this last year. Tragedy comes in all shapes, sizes, forms and experiences. Loved ones die from disease as well as broken hearts. And sometimes, intentionally. People suffer in different ways. Our strength, our humor, our intellect, our compassion, our empathy, has been tested to its fullest capacity. It’s all too close to home.

Maybe we can ponder a bit of the future now that the worst is behind us. What can we say about what we have left that’s unfinished? What are you planning to do once the all clear bell rings? Will you return to your past lifestyle? What’s your new normal? I tend to believe that following your passions and listening to your heart will be your truth. Your own personal destiny. Not one that has been dictated by societies norms and expectations. A life suitable to the inner workings of your soul. A life nurtured by a lifetime of personal experiences. Some failures and yes some successes. I would suggest taking a moment to reflect on how you will step into this new era. We have this new luxury of quiet time to self reflect- Time now allotted to make any changes to our past behaviors that have inhibited us or guarded us from making those difficult decisions to… take that risk, that scary plunge. It’s all up to you.

Now that it is quieter, maybe we can move forward and take that new path or maybe take baby steps to look at the old one. My hope is that we can be a kinder nation. I desperately want to be a part of this rebuild.

Do you?

This month in this NEW fresh year, Poets Place has many contributions from writers that share those thoughts of rebirth and hope. Some familiar faces, and some famous ones too! I am thankful to LAARTNEWS for this platform to host anyone who wants a forum to share their hearts, souls and unleashed creativity. IT’S 2021!! BRING IT ON BABY!!!

ENJOY!

What’s left unfinished?

By Linda Kaye

Have you completed or started your bucket list? Or are you just thinking about what you don’t have?

Did you finish that novel that poem or that letter to your family asking for forgiveness sharing those crusty harbored feelings of abandonment hurt anger or love? Or are you just pining and procrastinating about them?

Have you started that course you wanted to take forever to learn how to bake that bread make that ceramic bowl plant that garden travel to that mystical foreign land that you have spent copious hours researching the Internet about? Or write that love hate angry disappointed in it all song?

What’s left unfinished?

Have you planned that perfect death that will spell out all your desires and wishes at the end? Creating a to do list for your final countdown? Which includes having your nails polished a certain color, clipping your beard, tweezing those ugly nose and chin hairs, and specifying someone to put lipstick and makeup on that suits your preferred lifestyle ? Have you thought of what you’d want to wear at your funeral? Hawaiian shorts and a tee? The black sequined gown you never got to wear again? A rabbit costume? It’s in your court to decide. Have you written that Will or created a living trust about stipulating and assigning someone to deal with all your leftover stuff you never had a chance to go through, and someone to cancel all your social media accounts?

Unless you want everyone to wish you a happy birthday forever on Facebook! LOL!

What do you want your friends and family to say when you die? Rest in peace? He /she/ it /them /they was a good soul an unselfish humanitarian who went out of their way to acknowledge all who had crossed their path with encouragement acceptance and unconditional love? Or were they an entitled thief of love and friendships that never reciprocated an ounce of affection or attention, most likely a lonely isolated and fear mongering soul, or a neurotic selfish narcissistic bitch?

The eulogy left to others devices, well; anything could be said about the deceased- it’s personal and subjective. Why not create the perfect memorial service ahead of that time give out personalized leaflets or scripts with detailed instructions to recite!

Would that fly? Ha!

You could ask for donations at the funeral so the deceased family wouldn’t have to pay the bill entirely for the reception or have a go fund me funeral fundraiser, which is now the acceptable course of business these days. And you can do that while you’re still alive to see who donated! So tacky.

What’s left unfinished?

This poem

POST SOLSTICE

By Lisa Roman

Walk softly in the winter

So not to destroy

Tiny things below.

Little lives, burrowing in

Reddish orange blankets.

Like many things hidden

From the human eye.

Speak gently to the

Years End.

Lisa Roman is a native Californian, writer, artist, filmmaker and healer. Her background consists of set decorating and art direction for film during the 80's and 90's. She began doing pop up shows for various local artists during that time. Writing consists of poetry, humorist tales, scriptwriter and script doctoring. Her stories of magic and healing contain metaphysical essence. Entering 2021 as a film producer/writer with intent of continued expansion of spirit. Hope for a more sensitive future. 

Deal with it!

10-18-2020

10:12a.m. 

By Mary Cheung 

It's easy to complain and to not see the joy.

Bring down, break down, 

to live in a tunnel of despair, tear and destroy.

It's hard to keep your patience, temper that anger that threatens your common sense.

And sometimes you just want to let it go and give up.

Easier than being dragging down by this feeling that smothers you.

Walk away from it, let it breathe, take some time to digest. 

Stop fighting and resisting, just... give it a rest.

Because than all of a sudden you will see, 

The answer to your problems; was always there, staring right back at me. 

Sometimes you have to let go. Instead of hanging on so tightly. 

Arguing of who is right and wrong, an ugly truth that is so unsightly.

Let it go, take a deep breath.

Let your body fill with positive energy.

Now use it and channel what you need.

The out come might cost you more than a few pennies.

But your peace of mind and sanity is worth the costs.

Do it, before your humanity is lost.  

Mary Cheung is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

The Speaker

By Dan Frischman

11/12/81

In the McDonald’s on Westwood Blvd., I saw a man at a table, mumbling aloud to no one. I chuckled to myself and walked up to the counter.

“Help you?”
“Yes, I’ll have a Fish Filet, a fries, and a chocolate shake.”
“You’ll have to wait a few minutes for the fries, okay?”
“Fine.”
I paid, then looked back at the talking man, jabbering away. He was

dressed well enough — crinkly brown sports jacket, dress pants, patent leather shoes. The scraggly beard and Larry Fine-style hair left much to be mowed, though.

“Here you go. Thanks for waiting.”
“Sure.”
I sat against a wall, facing the man’s side two tables away. Looking

closer, I noticed he wasn’t just talking to a non-entity — he was relating to one. He looked it in the “eyes” when he spoke; he reacted to its imagined replies with earnest aplomb. I listened in, feeling like an interloper. Fortunately, the party I was facing was invisible.

“So I left this girl in Elizabeth, New Jersey,” he said. “It was no big deal, really. We had our time and when it was getting rough, we broke up. No big deal. We talked of my going back there, but I said forget it. I’m not going back there. Forget it, I said. We had our thrills, though. Huh?.... Yeah, you kidding? Yeah, we made it! Made it lots of times! All over the place! We made it in the park lots of times. On the grass. It was nice.... Cops?.... Yeah, no, they never came around. We had the whole place to ourselves. On the grass. It was nice. We did it there, sometimes we did it

on the sidewalk behind the library. Ha! It was great, we had a great time. But it wasn’t as nice as the grass, it was too hard. The grass was soft, and we had blankets and pillows. We did it there, the swimming pool.... No, no big deal, the swimming pool.... The shower? No, never did it in the shower. It was too—I don’t know—clean. You know where’s the best place to do it? You really want to know? In a bed. A soft....warm...bed. That’s where to do it. In a bed. Soft and warm.”

I was quickly sucked into the show. The man was interesting and very theatrical, his arms gesticulating wildly, and his eyes popping for emphasis. I was watching a one-man play, complete with logical progression and smooth segues.

“My parents almost never got it on. I know. If I wasn’t born, I’d swear they’d never got it on. My father was a prick. I hated his guts. Grade-A jerk bastard. I hated him and his guts. My mother was nice. We got along. I liked my mother. My grandfather was prick. Dumb butt, dumb jerk. Pervert prick bastard. The only one I really loved was my grandmother. I loved her. I loved that lady so much. She was the only one who could slap me. My mother did it, I’d have taken a hatchet to her. I would’ve. My grandmother could do it. She was old, and I respected her.”

He continued on about his grandmother while a middle-aged man sat next to me with a coffee. I hardly noticed him at first, as entranced by the talking man as I was. Then he addressed me.

“He’s a very interesting person.”

I turned to him. He was an amiable-looking fellow, about fifty-five, balding, honest eyes—the kind of guy you’d expect to be named Jerry.

“He’s here almost every day and he sits and talks to himself. Excuse me, my name’s Isaac. What’s yours?”

“Dan.”
“Hi, Dan.”
“Hello.”
I was trying to divide my attention between Isaac and the talking man,

which was tough. The talker segued into religion, and why he was glad to be Presbyterian instead of Roman Catholic, which lost my interest. I opted for Isaac.

“I come here everyday for a coffee. I like to get out of my apartment once in a while. I’m on the admissions staff at UCLA, but I’m on break now, taking it easy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Everyday around three-thirty, I come in here and listen to the Speaker. That’s what I call him. He’s very interesting and very prolific. It’s great entertainment, better than a play or a movie. Here you just sit, buy a coffee, and watch this guy talk about everything. I don’t always agree with what he says, but he’s very logical. He’s always backs up his premises.”

“Did you ever talk to him?”

“No, never tried talking to him. Ha, ha! It might be interesting at that. Ha! No, the show might end, and he seems pretty involved with whoever he pretends he’s talking to.”

The Speaker was into the War Years. Isaac and I tuned in.

“World War Two was hell, man — fuckin’ hell. I was there, man... Hell, yeah, I was there, blastin’ them gooks! I killed my share. I killed ‘em, I did. I aimed and I shot. Killed a lot of them... Nah, I didn’t’ like it or nothin’, it just had to be done. They told us to do it, and it was kill or be killed, you know what I mean? There was some guy there who fell into this

trap — a hole in the ground. That’s bad, man, fallin’ in a hole. He yelled. I said, ‘Hold on, man! Just hold on!’ I looked in on ‘im. He was impaled on a bed of spikes. All through ‘im. The only thing I couldn’t figure out is how the hell he was able to yell. I mean if you saw ‘im.... War, man—fuckin’ hell.”

He dug his cigarette into the ashtray.

“He’s going to get up and buy another coffee now, “ Isaac informed me. “Watch.” Sure enough, the Speaker got up and walked to the counter. “He always does that. I watch him all the time.”

Isaac was obviously proud of his knowledge of the Speaker. “Now, you see that man over there?”
Isaac pointed to a fat balding man with a cauliflower nose sitting in

the far corner of the room. He wore a white business shirt and black pants, and could easily pass for W.C. Fields. He was wiping his hands with a load of napkins, and looking uncomfortably at the table where the Speaker had been.

“He’s mad because the Speaker is sitting in his favorite seat. He’s here a lot, too. He comes in with a paper and just sits for hours cleaning his hands. I call him the Cleaner. And he always sits in the same chair — the one the Speaker sat in today.”

The Cleaner was standing now, looking back and forth between his favorite table and the Speaker, who was in line for his next coffee. The Cleaner seemed at a loss because the Speaker had and old green knapsack sitting on the table. If he reclaimed his regular seat, he would have to move it, which could provoke confrontation. He just stood uneasily, not knowing what to do.

The Speaker returned with a steaming coffee, not noticing the Cleaner glaring at him menacingly, and sat down to resume his monologue. Surprisingly enough, he started in again about the girl from New Jersey.

“So I left this girl in Elizabeth, New Jersey. It was no big deal, really. We had our time, and when it was getting rough...” Almost verbatim. I asked Isaac if the Speaker always repeated himself. He said never.

“He’s always got something new to talk about. Never any need to go back.”

“Yeah, but he just did. That stuff about the girl from New Jersey.”

“Oh, yeah? I must have missed that part. Pretty interesting, huh? Heh, heh.”

I remembered that Isaac came in just after that section, and an idea struck me. Was the Speaker repeating the story for Isaac’s benefit? He never made note of our existence, but we were only a few tables away.

“We made it in the park lots of times. On the grass. It was nice....” He stopped and stared at his coffee.

“No cream,” Isaac whispered.

The Speaker got up and took his coffee back to the counter. The Cleaner made his move.

“Uh-oh.” Isaac was worried.

The Cleaner moved the knapsack to another table and sat down. Now content, he resumed cleaning his hands.

“You came at a good time,” assured Isaac. “This’ll be some episode. I guarantee it.”

The Speaker got his cream and started for his seat. He stopped cold seeing the Cleaner, and just stood expressionlessly for half a minute,

watching him clean his hands. Then he slowly picked up his knapsack and headed for the Men’s room. Isaac sighed and stood up.

“Well, that’s it. We won’t see him for a while now.”
“He just went to the bathroom.”
“He locked himself in. He always does that when someone bothers

him. He’ll be in there for at least twenty minutes.” “Locked himself....”

“Yup. Well, so long, my friend. Stop back sometime and we’ll watch the Speaker together. Bye now.”

“Bye.”

Isaac left. A boy tried entering the bathroom, but couldn’t get in — the door was locked. A few others tried with no luck. The whole thing struck me as very funny and I started laughing. The restaurant manager tried the door, and knocked. No response. I was in hysterics now. It was like a circus: “Step right up and see the Speaker and his invisible friend! The Cleaner and his napkins! Isaac the ringmaster! Step right up, no one turned away!”

I was doubled over with laughter when some girls walked by me giggling. I turned in time to see them watching me, and they quickly scurried away. I suddenly felt very self-conscious. There I was, sitting by myself in a McDonald’s, laughing into space. Like some nut.

I finished my fries and left. ******************

Dan Frischman is an Actor/writer/magician best known for his 80s/90s roles as "Arvid" on ABC’s Head of the Class, and as "Chris" on Nickelodeon’s Kenan & Kel. TV/theater director. Short magic performances at http://www.houdanny.com

Prosperity:

By Ronald G Carrillo

Divine consciousness

God is my supply

Unlimited prosperity

Reset my creativity

More defined focus

Leaving behind the mundane hocus pocus

In simplicity I see the bigger picture

My direction is sharper

My edge is kinder

Less fear more clear

Age has created an erosion in me

Worn down my rough edges

Built up my patina

Mellowed my soul

Filled a hole in my heart and head

Becoming more whole

Settled into this skin

Much more comfortable within

I begin not again but anew

Even my aura of blue is gleaming

Sunshine streaming through all that I do

A new school of learning a spiritual view

My personal journey has met a fork in the road

Leaving one path and embarking on another

A deeper route I’m exploring with gratitude

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.

Celebration

By Mona Jean Cedar

Alone

At home; in my head

Alone All alone All together

I know you’re there. out there out of reach

I know we will be together again

Will celebrate together, again

All together again

The troubles that separate us, Will leave us

Our world has turned upside down

The commotion has calmed

Our thoughts turned inward

Reality is clear

All has Become peaceful; holy; silent.

But now, in this sacred silence we sow seeds of spirituality

Soon to bloom into a bounty of beauty.

In this sacred silence the world opens;

We perceive, receive, conceive

A new global enlightenment

We will learn new skills of connection

A new language of inclusion

A new global vision

And together, a glorious global celebration!

Mona Jean Cedar has been composing poetry and choreographing dances with American Sign Language for over twenty years. She is RID certified American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter, has an AA in Dance, a BA in Deaf Studies from CSUN, attended The National Theater of the Deaf, and the Julliard School in NYC for Theatrical Interpreting on Broadway. With her musician/circuit bending husband they have performed at Burning Man, in Europe and all around the USA.  Presently she is the resident interpreter for the National Poetry Slams and a co-founded of ASL Cabaret – a celebration of ASL performing artists!

Unleashed

By Mike Sonksen aka Mike the PoeT

Unpredictable like January rain

Santa Ana winds come from the east

Eucalyptus trees in the left turn lane

Mother Nature unleashed 

on Pasadena streets

20 Twenty One

2021

things will never be the same

don't watch the rerun

2021

the Rose Parade was cancelled

throw your own instead

2021

stay safe social distancing

get to know yourself

Mike Sonksen aka Mike the PoeT is a 3rd-generation Los Angeles native. Poet, professor, journalist, historian and tour-guide, his latest book Letters to My City was published by Writ Large Press. His poetry’s been featured on Public Radio Stations KCRW, KPCC & KPFK & TV programs like Spectrum News. Sonksen taught high school for five years and now teaches at Woodbury University.   

Lucky One

by Jane Cantillon

Like she was going into a sunny Embassy Suite, she slipped into the Disney Cancer Center and smiled at the receptionist, a perky Doris Day look-alike with her earnest "how are you?"  Probably, Joan thought, another survivor.  Her right breast was tender, second degree burns spreading in the shadow of the pendulous one in question.  Mechanically moving toward the locker room, down a nondescript hallway marked with a painting of a California mission, she pushed open the door and she peeled off her shirt and virgin white hospital bra she was given after surgery, and there she looked at the angry smile of a scar on her breast, pulled this camisole around her waist and said "Hey dear, you alright? All quiet in there?"  She began to gently massage her right breast for she had heard a recent report that breasts that get more loving and massaging are more likely to be cancer free.  She was curiously feeling herself up, like when she first found the tiny bump.  Then a crooked woman came through the door just out of treatment. A scarf wrapped neatly around her head, a perfectly slender and obedient patient marching out of the breast cancer factory.  Joan knew this woman, always did what she was told, cautious and thoughtful in her life, a perfect student, then wife and mother, and now, a perfect cancer patient.


"Hello "she murmured a daily nod though she seemed to be growing weaker than Joan, who was one of the lucky ones who didn’t need chemo.  Lucky, she would sigh. She then climbed into her fresh laundered hospital robe and pushed the door open to the inner sanctum waiting room. 

A Big 3D screen with scenes from a perfect white sand beach pixelated seagulls appeared to greet her there, a Disney ride gone terribly wrong, next to a small kitchen with burned coffee and traces of coffee mate from the early morning customers.  She now had a habit of placing her left hand over her breast "Now now girl, promise not to let those nasty little cells run wild again.?" 

Like clockwork, a large Russian man came out, Miss Joan, we are ready for you."  Down a long hallway to the other familiar technician that knows every cell of her right breast and mumbles a hello, she then removed her gown waist up lies down on electric gurney and places her arms above her head.


She is then locked in--shackled like a 17th-century prisoner in the belly of a steely ship, when they spout out numbers, measures, do not move they say as they position her body like the prep of a large holiday turkey. The remotes are pushed, machines like cannons move to each blue mapping tattoo, the three positions of her right breast, throbbing now. They are ready to fire the radiation into her body, then the nurse routinely says,"Your name and birth date please." Joan of Arc, January 2013." she laughs as the technicians scatter behind the thick barrier walls.  "What was that?" the nurse says, safely hidden away.

Multi-talented Jane Cantillon is an Emmy-nominated producer, working in daily television for over 24 years. More recently, Cantillon been an improvisational creative writing and arts facilitator who hosts private salon-type workshops and retreats in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree. Designed to help non-writers and artists manifest their dreams through sharing their work, she creates unconventional prompts that develop into moving stories. She also conducts art and music therapy at various assisted living facilities in Los Angeles. Cantillon also fronts an original rock band backed by her husband called The Dick and Jane Family Orchesrtra, and she produced and directed a critically acclaimed documentary called "The Other Side: A Queer History's Last Call".

Thanks for joining! We will continue to power through and hopefully make this next year more loving and accepting.

With great hope for a healthier future

Love,

Linda Kaye

Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.

Linda Kaye writes poetry, produces spoken word and art events and produces a poetry column POETS PLACE for the online publication LAARTNEWS throughout the Los Angeles area.

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park .The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique and Zweet Café in Eagle Rock. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on YOUTUBE.

Linda Kaye is a native Angelino who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology and social work. Linda, now retired was working for the last seven years as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 25 years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

December Poet's Place! The Holiday Edition!

POETS PLACE

END OF AN ERA

DECEMBER 2020

It’s hopefully the end to an era, and a hearty goodbye to a cruel and heartless administration that has brought down and ignored most of the humanistic values of an American nation. At least, in my book, that’s how I see it. I can only speak for myself and share the devastating effects this year has brought to my forefront. For me this year started off with hosting a bang up of a New Years Eve bash. This one was grander than the last. There were endless amounts of delicious food to gobble up, and a bottomless supply of libations to slosh down our happy throats. People were openly hugging and unabashedly sharing the love. A live punk band played loud and fierce and a live Rap artist danced and galloped around the room entertaining the crowd with his rap of soul and awe. The night came to fruition with a barrage of funk-a-licious gyrating dance music spun from the ultimate rock music connoisseur, DJ Reverend Dan. We didn’t know or had any clue of the dangers up ahead. This was our America. And we partied like it was 1999.

April 1, 2020 was my scheduled date of retirement. What a depressing entry into retirement after 30 plus years of service as a social worker. What was supposed to be a joyous well earned and exciting welcome to a new chapter in life, became a throttling thrust into a virulent world of a deadly virus, which catapulted the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting human beings, instigated by the deniers of the devastation and the refusal of scientific warnings to wear masks, and refrain from congregating without a safe distance. Such ignorance and stupidity made no sense to me.

On a positive note, creatively speaking I have been given the opportunity to host this wonderful monthly column- giving a platform for anyone, and everyone, poets and writers, alike, a forum in which to share their thoughts, wherever their free flowing mind took them. That’s been a good thing, right? Many of us have sought solace in creating art within a multitude of mediums. A copious amount of covid19 type themed artworks spawned, including racist inspired art and a host of voter bandwagons. I personally have produced an anti-racist Rap music video, partnering with Mary Cheung who is a monthly contributor to Poets Place. The video was inspired by the increased US administration’s blind support of acts of racism that has been allowed, enabled in this country. The video is titled ERACE-ISM. The act of erasing racism. Here’s the Youtube link. Check it out!

https://youtu.be/NfrbveNUBgg

Now that our administration has turned blue, I am hoping to see a decline in the numbers of victims succumbing to this deadly virus and that we can hopefully see a diminishing change in our negative and disrespectful behaviors towards each other. Can we really embrace the 40% who denied reality and allowed a loser con man to run our country into the ground? We shall see.

Thanks to everyone, especially the editor in chief Cathi Milligan of the LAARTNEWS, who have contributed and supported POETS PLACE throughout this most devastating and challenging year!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS Y’ALL!!!!

PEACE

Love,

Linda

ON CLOSER INSPECTION

By Linda Kaye

No matter how much you clean the dust particles remain 

The mind races unable to sort out the constant barrage of toxic influences and stupid rhetoric as if bombs are exploding behind the retina of the eye

Creating images of death diseases religious fanatics beheadings weddings starving dogs and weeping children

Senseless behaviors flooding the world as we speak a wrath of dearth with loads of rhyme and incomprehensible reason

On closer inspection 

look up to the sky and ponder 

grab a blunt and get high on life's gifts and presents of love that surrounds abounds with infinite wisdom 

the Dalai Lama-isms

"Silence is sometimes the best answer"

Reflections of experiences passed 

on guilty pleasures unlocked treasures 

Buried deep 

underneath 

trying to escape through the barriers of imperfections

Mirrored inspections that resemble that familiar face

 smells of that place

 the repression that holds tight 

squeezes with all its might

Upon deeper inspection colors appear brighter when the fear peels away revealing untapped resources of gold and markings of scars that have actually healed but remain buried encrusted as a trusted friend although developmentally delayed and frightfully stayed

Oh the possibilities of new skin 

A fresher look of perception unclouded visions

transcendence of soul 

unconditional love and acceptance of self of humanity 

respect of thy neighbor 

Thy friend, nature, the earth. 

WONDERLAND

By Richard Q Russeth

I can hardly abide this tiredness;

I could melt into the ground,

and leave no more trace behind

than does the wind rippling

across a Kansas wheat field.

Of the usual things, I am tired,

perhaps we have that in common.

Dear reader, I am especially tired

of this Wonderland year, now almost gone. Running a fever of 100, me, not the year,

though you would not be wrong to say

this year had a fever.

Here in my favorite stuffed green chair,

I drink ginger ale and nibble at saltine crackers,

my cure for everything ill,

and I read long books, it is another way out.

Outside my window, well, fall turning to winter

is a regular trope so I will skip it here.

The fever will pass, but the tiredness

has accumulated over long decades,

perhaps you know this burden as well,

it would surprise me if otherwise.

Wonderland tires those of us

who can still remember ourselves.

With age, remembering becomes

ever harder, and while those who forget

seem to go far in Wonderland,

they never learn not to answer

the wind that asks no questions,

and so they are speechless when the time comes.

Remember yourself as the wind does-

ripple across the world, but know

you will leave no trace,

and when the wind dies down,

there will be nothing more to say.

richard q russeth

A poet, photographer, baker and magician who lives in Ohio with his wife Charlotte. 

"CURSED" - By Austin Musick ©2020

All you do is use me
Never giving back
You use me til there’s nothing left 

and then toss me back to black 

Or worse yet you infuse me
With your dreams, your rage, your pain
There I go again, 

My heart it bleeds for you 

All across this page
You vanish, leave me empty
It seems so are you in fact
So you call me up, you’re hungry 
A vampire thirsty for his snack…

You fool me every moment
Every word I just believe
You fool my heart, you give me hope
With your lies of loving me.

Or worse yet you infuse me

With your facades and fantasies

Til I close eyes, 

And let you in again 

To come back in and have your feast

No I cant say no

Even when I know

Its just another fling

You’ll come to kiss me once, Kiss me twice 

Sometimes three times before you leave

Won't someone tell me how,

Do I let you go

When all the memories of you

Are now stitched in my soul?
Tell me how to break this curse? 

Why do I keep on loving you 

When loving you,

Just hurts? 

BIOGRAPHY

Unitsi Ai, also known as Austin Musick, is a singer, songwriter, poet, producer and actor based in Los Angeles, California. Originally from East Tennessee and born with a mixed heritage that consisted of Cherokee and Japanese, Unitsi Ai is raw, real, and soulful singer of stories inspired by life experience, as she combines poetry, rhythm, and melody in perfect unison.

Writing poetry since she was a child, Unitsi Ai took a few piano lessons at the age of nine but was chastised and discouraged from continuing after her teacher caught her playing by ear and memory rather than reading the sheet music. Nevertheless as an artist, she was determined to create, somehow, someway. She studied at the University of Tennessee and graduated with a B.A. in Theatre and a minor in Business. Ironically, she auditioned for and therefore was never cast in a musical. In fact, it took nearly 15 years before she would return to her roots of writing and poetry that would later provide the inspiration and springboard to her music career.

With gratitude,

Austin Musick

aka Unitsi Ai

https://www.unitsiai.online

https://www.austinmusick.com

NEW DAY

By Mary Cheung

10-3-20

6:40a.m.

New day,

U peek at the corner of the sky.

Slowly drawing back the blanket of night.

Testing the weight of darkness.

Letting light seep in slowly,

You let your warmth drip out into the cold.

The cold chilling death of night.

An inch at a time, your fingers creep;

Getting use to the temperature, 

   slowly.

It feels good...

It brings on a smile.

Your lips are tinged in lavender and blue from the cold..

At first a shy coyish smile.

The corners of your mouth move,

Warming up, inching, a bit at a time.

Until it widens into a smirk.

Deeper still the colors richen.

Violet and blue, scatters across your mouth.

Pumping into them orange and red.

Slowly your limbs awaken, coming to life.

Purple and mauve blossoms.

Lighting upon your face golden hues,

of bronze and amber.

I feel the warmth-ness spread.

Until it widens into a smile.

It seeps into my skin.

Crimson fades into gold than sand.

Last bits of blue all but disappears.

You wiggle your toes now,

Lighting up from within,

   sparks of energy.

Your smile stretches further still.

Until I start to see your teeth.

The bright enamel of a blazing,

   red,

       sun.

It blinds me.

I can barely see.

But I feel it,

   Awakening all my senses.

A boiling cauldron of red, bubbles.

You detangle from your sheets of darkness.

Fully committed to the open now.

The sudden shock of the cold;

You respond to it by blazing.

Blossoms and thrums with urgency.

Brighter and lighter still.

Dances across the sky in multitudes, 

Amplified by the reflection,

In tall glass and metal bones jutting out from the ground.

Suddenly you are everywhere.

The whole world is wrapped in a repeating stamp, 

that shouts out loud..

Wake up! This is the new day!

Stretch your limbs and rise!

I am here! Draw in my breath,

Waken and rise.

Mary Cheung is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

SEASON OF GRATITUDE

By Ronald G. Carrillo (Days of Thanksgiving 2020)

The political winds of change in the red, white and blue air

It’s a national scare waiting the day after

The chair in the White House will be filled to further our history

Democracy is no longer a baby nor an adolescent

She is maturing and changing her national complexion

She drinks and takes drugs but doesn’t pay her bills

She is sinking in debt and addictions

She needs a citizens’ intervention

She won’t comply

She’s not shy but rather ambitious

As she stands on the world stage in the COVID winds of her shame

Her manifest destiny no longer definite

She wavers her power unstably in Liberty’s harbor

Her constitutional ardor in disguise

Now being revealed and contested before the world

All lives matter but some were put through genocide

Put in chains, divided from their children

Put in reservation camps of tears

Sent to internment camps and not recognized as true citizens

All their lives mattered and all their lives were put in tatters

Before America as she was birthed to empire from old world ideologies

This queen has no clothes and no clue

Her white male dominant side is being challenged

They refuse to share power or give an inch

They never will and their domination must die out

As a new seed of diversity will replenish her American soil

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.

COFFEE WITH LA LUNA

By Lisa Roman

I woke up at 5. As always, to have coffee with the moon. She had danced all night, yet her energy was not exhausted. What radiance, exudes from a million-year-old goddess. No complaints of the past, only lighting the future. Small creatures snored, dreaming of things that animals do. Palm fronds swept against the walls of my home. A soothing alarm clock before the snooze button squirrel. La Luna drifted slowly, her own dreams entering mine and the unconscious thoughts of many. I felt her heart inside of mine. A reminder that all is well. Even when it isn’t. A glimpse in the eye of the universe. This moment. This year. Or decade. Life is OK she says. Look at the beauty that has been created during and after the eclipses. Nothing new under the sun. Other than light. Be well. Good morning to you all. 

Lisa Roman is a native Californian, writer, artist, filmmaker and healer. Her background consists of set decorating and art direction for film during the 80's and 90's. She began doing pop up shows for various local artists during that time. Writing consists of poetry, humorist tales, scriptwriter and script doctoring. Her stories of magic and healing contain metaphysical essence. Entering 2021 as a film producer/writer with intent of continued expansion of spirit. Hope for a more sensitive future. 

Thanks for joining us this last year! We will continue to power through and hopefully make this next year more loving and accepting.

With great hope for our future

Love,

Linda Kaye

Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.

www.laartnews.com

November Poet's Place!

POETS PLACE

NOVEMBER 2020 (will go down in history!)

Nov 2- as I contemplate what to write for the opening of this month’s column I feel somewhat paralyzed. The looming election (tomorrow) haunts me. The hope for a brighter future is elusive to me.

Nov 4- here we are in this dreaded wait for the outcome of the election to reveal itself. Just in case it all goes south, I have the cyanide laced Kool-Aid at the ready. Since our country is split 50/50 between a woke and mostly educated arsenal of people wanting a safe, healthy, anti-racist, caring, conscientious, science supporting and generally open to sharing the wealth to support our failing and flawed nation, half- and then we have the other half. A mixed up delusional racist and hate mongering half, mostly uneducated and white. Is it really fair to say that we should accept whatever fate we are dealt? I simply cannot wrap my head around such ignorance. Of course I understand their behaviors, and how it has been perpetuated and enabled by the cunt in chief. But, REALLY???? The stupidity of millions Americans. Do they not want the socialist perks of Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security benefits?? Which dare I say many of them are benefitting from????? Will those benefits disappear if the CIC (cunt in chief) claims they are part of socialist values, which he despises? The CIC doesn’t care a rat’s ass about this country. It’s obvious that we do, and we have been showing our displeasure and outrage with a multitude of outpourings these past 4 years. Thank you to everyone who are WOKE and aware of all that we have lost.

I pray for the best outcome.

This month in Poets Place we have lots of stories, poetry and limericks!!!

YES!!! Keep em coming y’all!

ENJOY!!!

Teetering on the edge of the emotional cliff

By Linda Kaye

Looking out over the emotional cliff pondering the distance

the drop factor for rapid inevitable doom

Considering the effect measuring the gloom

the aftermath of eternal tomb

A perpetration of devastatingly irrational behavior 

Shameless

A hallucinating nightmare brought on by distraught

despair, drugs, death and denial

Deliberately imposed unable to dispose

Wonton thoughts of derelict existence penetrate the brain

ceaselessly

intensely

Teetering on the edge of the emotional cliff

Toes hangover losing balance legs become stiff

Almost falling over brain queasingly seizes

Freezing

Smelling a whiff of remembrance a familiar embrace of darkness tugging at the sleeve

Calling your name

Whispering some insane delusion

"Can you see the real me can you can you?"

Aren't we all capable of extreme acts of craziness?

Brothers and Sisters

By Lee Boek

We sit on the ridge, once the lawn,

Near the ash of the children’s swings,

The little Buddha Shrine Garden

Survives

How easy to see them still

The swings, the house, the garden, the birds, the critters

A camping tent is put up where the screen room was

We sit outside at fire and look

Where once the house, a one room picker’s shack

Converted into a comfortable home with a nice deck

Overlooking the creek, existed and thrived.

The Civil War silverware under the bed

Has fallen into the ash and dust

Covered in white plastic

Awaiting abatement before salvage

The land looks so different

Since the firestorm,

Sounding like a jet engine with a train in front of it,

Denuded underbrush

Blackened tree sticks.

Pines cut and laying about

Piles of tin on ash

Blackened

Stench where the turkeys got cooked

The land exposed by fire,

The pond, closer now without foliage

Creek bed covered in straw and white plastic.

Forty years of living and accumulating

Adult lives full of children growing

Struggling to feed clothe teach secure

Grow older

Celebrations of life

Up top at the bar and workshop

In The Green House, for guests

Down across the creek in the little shanty

Or out back at the barn

Always with fire in stoves and in pits

Great food, wine, weed and song

Laughter and Drama

On this land

Albums, keepsakes… a family legacy

Vanishes,

By fire and sixty mile an hour winds

“What do I do now?”

Slow motion, contemplation and evaluation

Our homes remain rich in our memories

Whatever comes next will never be what was

What started from nothing

Nothing to nothing

New beginning or an old ending?

Oak, redwood, palm and Kinfolk survive

Revive.

Little green blades of grass and mushrooms

Emerge

The bob cat seen again

The Canadian geese return to the pond

Mother Nature not deterred

Wildflowers replace wildfires

Debris will disappear

Saws sharpen

Structures rise up

Trees grow, seeds, new growth, surprises

New generations of energy, determination

Good health and strength

Live on…Live on

May it be so

Song: Pecan Pie

I’m sitting on the dark side,

Tryin’ to see the bright side

Could ya, send some of that Jesus

To me?

I said, “I’m sitting on the dark side

Tryin’ to see the bright side

Livin’ in the “land of the free”

Bom Bom Bom

Down in Louisiane, when the people looked around

All the pecan pie was gone

There was none that could be found

Yeah, all the pecan pie is gone

Yeah all the pecan pie is gone

When I looked around

None could be found

All the pecan pie was gone

I always had me a home

But now, my home is gone

And when the “Saints come marching in”

There gonna be wanting to eat some again

But all the pecan pie is gone

Yeah all the pecan pie is gone

When we looked around

None could be found

All the pecan pie is gone

Lee Boek, born and raised in the California Bubble, first I was a teen-age evangelist whose ministry intersected with the civil rights movement while preaching in the southern United States. Then turning to the education I was warned never to get, to the anti war movement of the sixties, the environmental movement of the seventies and today. During this time I became a performer of satirical stories and sketches mostly based on my own life experiences. For the last nearly forty years I have been a member of and/or the Artistic Director of Public Works Improvisational Theatre

My Top Ten Reasons Why The Monkees Are Awesome

By Randi Lavik

In 1986, kids of my generation couldn’t look away from Mtv. Sting and Cyndi Lauper were right… We Wanted Our Mtv!

When the nice man from the cable company arrived to install Mtv at our house, this reporter was delighted. And influenced, you bet.

Fresh out of Downey High School (where the 605 meets the 5), and exploring career opportunities in the LA radio industry, I was a fan of all music videos, for better or worse. On the shy side by nature, I never would have predicted back then (as a KROQ College Intern, in the oftentimes cringe-y ‘Roq of the 1980s’ years), that I would one day as an FM Producer, Host and Author, re-watch Mtv content in 2020, for research purposes-----Science!

https://youtu.be/V83JR2IoI8k

In its inaugural stage, music videos ran on Mtv around the clock. Many years later and after years of American Studies and Radio/TV/Film Communications courses—thanks Mom and Dad—I see the good, the bad, the ugly and the extremely un-PC. I’m looking at you, Hair Metal bands (you know who y’all are). But forget all that, and ahem, as the anti-Metal band that I’m profiling here made me fall in love, in 1986, all thanks to Mtv.

Photo by www.totally80s.com

Photo by www.totally80s.com


Because in ‘86, Mtv ran a marathon of Monkees episodes. A whole lot of teens adored them immediately, myself most definitely. I’m what is commonly referred to in The Monkees fan community as a ‘Second Generation Fan’ aka ‘Monkee Junkee’ and/or ‘Monkeegirl.’

Pre-Social Media, I socialized with Monkee friends and exchanged gossipy letters and baby pics with Monkee pen pals across the country. I attended talks, book-signings and fan meetups. Two girls I visited were literally creating a Monkees museum in their tiny Venice flat, with Monkees memorabilia on every surface and every wall, all the way up to the ceiling. They published a Monkees fanzine. Before fanzines.

When I got into the radio business in the late 1980s, I helped plan the inaugural Los Angeles Monkees Convention—putting me right smack in the middle of Monkees-related royalty including Rodney Binghenheimer, Julie Newmar, Gary Strobl… and even famed rock and roll photographer Henry Diltz. “Morrison Hotel” Diltz. I too photographed the Convention--with my Fedco Instamatic. Blurry evidence in storage. Our first planning meeting took place at the now-historic landmark ‘Rock and Roll’ Denny’s in Hollywood.

I saw every Monkees concert I could possibly attend. I went on a blind date with a guy who turned out to be their Apprentice Recording Engineer in 1987, and asked the poor guy a million gazillion Monkees questions. I went out once with a famous LA radio morning show personality from a competing station, who had then just recently interviewed them, and I asked the poor guy a million gazillion Monkees questions.

I mean a FAN fan.

The Beatles were my first love and The Monkees were My American Beatles.

Here are my top ten reasons why I’m a believer, you ‘betcha:

1605822121815blob.jpg

“How ‘Bout the Flip Side, Then?”

Davy’s Hand-Signed Autobiography

Author’s Personal Collection

1. Davy

Before he was cast as a Monkee for American ‘tellys, our friend the tiny-but-mighty Manchester native David Jones served as an apprentice horseracing jockey, before trying a hand at acting. He was soon cast in a big series, where he become famous in the UK, relatively quickly, as a television actor.

In addition, he was a terrific stage performer and was cast as ‘The Artful Dodger’--a feature role in the classic musical Oliver, on London’s West End, and with the traveling company.

Even before he was a Monkee, Davy shared the stage with The Beatles (!) while appearing with his Oliver cast-mates on The Ed Sullivan Show in February, 1964 (on the same date that The Beatles famously first appeared and subsequently shook the world).

The multitalented Jones soon set off on a singing career track, having recorded some (now extremely collectable) solo music. Davy was awfully cute, and on The Monkees series, he was the object of desire to many admirers (complete with the requisite ‘60s-sitcom twinkly special-EFX stars in their eyes).

Jones was a triple threat: He could act, sing and dance. Who doesn’t love the ‘Davy Dance’? So groovy, baby. Watch the “Daydream Believer” video on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean. I hope Axl Rose sent him a royalty check.

https://youtu.be/xvqeSJlgaNk

I think Davy’s finest moment was his dance with Monkees’ choreographer (and New Wave Legend) Toni Basil in “Daddy’s Song” from the movie “Head.” This is just adorable and maintains its charm upon re-viewing in 2020:

https://youtu.be/6PNfnNBDatY

I met Davy two times in the late ‘80s and have to admit that I was absolutely terrified, whilst I tried not to cry happy, simultaneously. I bought Prince Davy a magnificent bouquet in Beverly Hills to honor his first book signing and got a beautiful signature and a hug. So handsome—RIP.

1605822171614blob.jpg

Monkees Swag

Author’s Personal Collection

2. Peter

Peter Tork was an East Coast-based folksinger, before venturing to California to try his hand at music. A contemporary of Stephen Stills and The Mamas and The Papas, among other local talent, Peter excelled at the banjo. Not long after he arrived in LA, Peter saw a random want ad in Variety, went to the audition, and that was that.

Peter was cast on The Monkees series as a dumb blonde, but Mr. Tork was no fool. Behind those cute ‘lil dimples was a smart fella. After The Monkees, he became an Educator.

Tork was taken very seriously musically in the Blues community post-Monkees years, fronting the highly-acclaimed Shoe Suede Blues band. He also collaborated with guitar great James Lee Stanley.

Like Ringo in the Beatles, Peter was extremely popular with fans, and also like Ringo, he wasn’t the front man, per se, he was given basically one track per Monkees album release. His songs were quirky and unusual for the times--a throwback to vaudeville perhaps?

I dig “Do I Have To Do This All Over Again.” Hippies rule:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArauGDh-Edw

Peter left a vibrant extended family and will be remembered for peace, love and sunshine. Those dimples though. And always such a beautiful smile on that fella. I’ve told the story on the radio about how my friends and I tailed The Monkees tour bus from the Pacific Amphitheater to the 405 freeway through Orange County, post-show, late ‘80s, and that Peter waved to us for miles (with that smile). Oh swoon.

Utterly folksy and charming: take a listen to “Auntie Grizelda” and get back to me.

https://youtu.be/yT-yMMYXFZw

With Michael Nesmith, Escondido CA

Michael Ivankay Photo

3. Mike

If you see a green wool hat and epic mutton chops, you think of one man. Mike Nesmith is and was a true talent. Not only an accomplished songwriter before the Monkees years, but also a United States Air Force Veteran, with a wife and kids at home.

Mike was a pretty terrific comic actor on The Monkees series. Those musical chops too! Good looks and cool Texan grit. But always slightly aloof. In a super cool way. One of my favorite Monkees episodes took place in season two, and is called “Fairy Tale” in which Mike’s acting chops are tested; he plays a beautiful Medieval Fairy Princess (mutton chops and all) with great humor and warmth under that hot pink lipstick.

Nesmith’s songs on and off the series are so great. According to sources, “He is a noted player of the 12-string guitar, performing on custom-built 12-string electric guitars with The Monkees (built by Gretsch).”

After The Monkees, Mike fronted The First National Band—they achieved several country-flavored music hits, including “Joanne”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5CiOTrRJBw

Mike invented music videos, literally, with his early 1980s-era VHS home video series’ “Elephant Parts” and “Television Parts”—he had the vision right before Mtv made him a star all over again. Nesmith produced theatrical releases as well, including Repo Man with Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez.

I had the amazing opportunity to attend a Monkees sound check a few years ago, and bravely approached Nesmith, post-show. He was so kind. Everyone around me swooned. I had a few minutes with him and we shared a funny discussion about my super fan years.

Mike really laughed when I described to him how nutso we kids went when, he famously reunited onstage at the Greek Theater with his former bandmates in the late 80s, after 20-plus years apart creatively, and how we screamed “OH MY GOD--IT’S MIKE!!!!!!” I think I amused this full-on genius, when I confessed to Nesmith that I wrote a Graduate-school term essay on “The Cultural Significance and Impact of The Monkees’ Film Head, 1968”—and got an A.

Nesmith’s finest Monkees songs if you want to take a look/listen: “You Just May Be the One”, “Love is Only Sleeping”, “Sunny Girlfriend”, “You Told Me”, “Listen to the Band” and “Sweet Young Thing.” The look on his face in practically every Monkees music video speaks for me: Haters can kiss his grits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zv8RNzczzQ

“Hi! I Used To Stalk You!”

Blurry Encounter With Micky, Long Beach, Post-Show

4. Micky

All of the fans had an ultimate favorite and Micky was my guy.

A usually relatively-nervy interviewer, I pitched and took the opportunity to chat with Micky Dolenz last year, alongside “Inner Journey” Host Greg Friedman, for KX FM, Laguna Beach public radio. At that point I had successfully disarmed the notoriously cranky John Lydon aka ‘Johnny Rotten’ on live radio, and got to interview my other too-cool-to-talk-to-me? And holy cow ‘dream radio guest’, legendary LA DJ Egyptian Lover… if I could do that I could do this, no?

Well, when I initially heard Dolenz’ voice on the phone, I think I stopped breathing. It was crazy. Greg reminded me to, in his words, “breathe, Randi, breathe” and after I did, things went fine. During the interview, I had the opportunity to personally apologize to Mr. Dolenz for basically stalking him back in the day. He accepted my apology, whew!

In 1987 or so, a Monkees Pen Pal from the Midwest shared his then-swanky 90210 address (we fans were fabulous detectives), and I shared the scoop with others, but I never knocked on the door. I would have fainted. Other fans did however, and got busted, leading to FBI inquiries, Micky told us. Oops.

I was remorseful that I had taken some fellow Monkeegirls on a personal “Monkees Tour of LA” while the Convention was in town, and carried this internally for years. Anyhow, all good and it felt great to finally come clean, literally decades later, as Micky was a brilliant, insightful guest (and it also made for some great unscripted radio). When he forgave me, I could finally breathe out again.

It’s truly breathtaking to have the good fortune to have the opportunity to interview a hero. Another musical hero of mine, Dramarama lead singer and songwriter John Easdale, recently revealed a similar experience. TNN Radio Host Jimmy Alvarez and I interviewed him for KX FM, where Easdale revealed that he admires Micky as much as I do, and saw him once at a music event in person, but awestruck, he just couldn’t approach Dolenz. A speechless songwriter? With usually so much to say! Why were we so dumbfounded and why do we adore him?

Oh Micky, you’re so fine: Great sense of humor, class, sense of style, an amazing ‘fro in 1968, and most of all—pipes. Micky’s got ‘em. His sister Coco does too.

For starters, Dolenz sang on Broadway post-Monkees. Born into a showbiz family, he was a series regular as a tyke in the 1950s. An accomplished director, producer and actor, Micky was cast on The Monkees as a drummer and literally learned to play them (via the expert tutelage of Hal Blaine, drummer among the infamous ‘Wrecking Crew’).

Not long after the series became popular, The Monkees went on tour, learning to play their own music in a relatively short time period and were thrust into the spotlight at several live concerts across the country. Micky and Mike still sound fine live in concert.

Micky is a true renaissance man; he paints, he’s an accomplished woodworker, he built a gyrocopter in his garage, etc. etc. etc. I forgot to ask him if Toni Basil wrote “Mickey” about him—I’m going to guess he was her favorite Monkee too.

My favorite Dolenz vocals are on “Porpoise Song”, “No Time”, “Through The Looking Glass”, “Sometime in the Morning”, “As We Go Along”, “Goin’ Down” (Micky skats like a mofo) and “All of Your Toys.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWRNUQWKhA8

5. Talent

A Monkees Marathon recently aired a few weekends ago on cable and I had the opportunity to re-watch a great deal of episodes. To be honest, the shows age well because as Monkee Micky Dolenz is often known to state, the show was “satirical, not topical.” The guys weren’t given the most sophisticated material to work with, and akin to Jerry Lewis, they clowned their way through their two seasons, while rebelling against authority figures most of the time.

What stands out: the mini-music videos within the oftentimes corny episodes. The Monkees, originally cast and ‘manufactured’ evolved—right before the viewer’s eyes--into what looks like a real cool band. And a walking, talking, singing, dancing, party of four please, 24/7.

The actors most certainly didn’t seem to adhere to the script as faithfully in season two, and started to literally, let their hair down; this progression from manufactured idol manner mode to sheer youthful irreverence, on and off the series, is fun to see now. The producers masterfully represented the counterculture in an underhanded way------on a “kids’ show.”

6. Charm

There’s a good reason why a show for kids that ran for only two seasons in the late 1960s still has such a large cultural impact.

Everyone knows the “Theme from The Monkees” is about to start when they hear the ‘ba da bump… Here were commmmeeeee… walkin’ down the streeeeet.’

Everyone knows ‘The Monkeewalk.’

Everyone swooned when Davy Jones sang “Girl” to Marsha Brady on The Brady Bunch.

The four Monkees didn’t look, act, or sound like anyone but themselves. Randomly assembled in a casting office, the four lads bonded and bounced off each other like old pros in no time flat. And good looks didn’t hurt. What shines through in the original series and throughout their musical careers: Cohesiveness and authenticity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29qrRiF9t-M

7. Songwriting

Michael Nesmith invented country-rock. He wrote some excellent songs for the series and subsequent album releases. In addition to Nesmith, the other Monkees wrote songs and more notoriously, The Monkees team had access to the some of the finest songwriters of the day, including Neil Diamond, Boyce and Hart, Mann and Weill, Goffin and King, Harry Nilsson, John Stewart, Neil Sedaka, Carole Bayer-Sager, and David Gates.

Essentially, a laundry list of musical talent.

8. Fashion

When you think of The Monkees you might remember this iconic look?

1605822338566blob.jpg

(Photo by Pinterest)

The Monkees, by design, wore co-branded mod-style fashions by J.C. Penney’s in season one. Peter wore his belt to the side, which was a first. More matchy-matchy than anything. Their hair was long-ish and Beatles-ish, but moussed and sprayed for television.

However, when they got insanely popular and recognizable in such a short amount of time, season two Monkees looked a little like this:

1605822375894blob.jpg

Photo by talesfromahungrylife.wordpress.com

Micky literally wore a tablecloth. They were bold, colorful and bravely fashion-forward for young men of their time. After The Monkees got famous in the USA, Davy went home to see his family in the UK, and his father famously made him go out and get a haircut before he could step into the family home.

1605822433944blob.jpg

Photo by @CoolCherryCream

9. Coolness Factor

The Monkees discovered Jimi Hendrix and invited him on tour to open for them. They visited The Beatles in the UK while they recorded ‘Sgt. Pepper’, right smack in the middle of the Summer of Love. John Lennon was a Monkees fan; notoriously comparing them to the Marx Brothers. Micky attended the Monterey Pop Festival in full costume and coordinating headdress. The Monkees supported the kids during the Sunset Strip Riots. Their experimental theatrical release “Head” costarred Jack Nicholson, Teri Garr and Annette Funicello. Run-DMC had a hit with the Nesmith-penned “Mary Mary”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgmyVLheqkQ

I maintain that “Steppin’ Stone” is the first ska song for kids. Their impact continues: after a weekend of the Monkees marathon, my K-Pop loving daughter is a fan now, too.

10. Fifty-Five Years and Going Strong

Mike Nesmith and Micky Dolenz are active on and off social media.

Nesmith is on Facebook all the time; even more than my Dad! He’s very outspoken politically. And surprisingly, is a very public advocate for what is known in some circles as ‘the devil’s lettuce.’ His kids are equally talented, sometimes collaborate with him, and are also active on and off Facebook as well.

Dolenz, the consummate showman, is always on the road. And always working and busy. Since forever. Like Nesmith, he’s thriving personally and professionally, is blessed with health and an extended, talented, good-looking family.

The Monkees are still recording music today, recently collaborating with famous fans including Weezer front man Rivers Cuomo and the late Fountains of Wayne’s Andrew Schlesinger. Their newest release “THE MONKEES – THE MIKE and MICKY SHOW LIVE” was recorded in March 2019. “Hey Hey” indeed.

For more information: 
https://www.Monkees.com/

https://www.facebook.com/michaelnesmith

https://www.facebook.com/micky.dolenz.7

Watch The Monkees series reruns on MeTV, weekends: http://www.metv.com

Randi Lavik is a Producer and Host, TNN Radio and The Drop at KX FM, Laguna Beach/Worldwide

Music Columnist, OC Music News

www.tnnradio.org - www.thedropsound.com - www.kxfmradio.org – www.ocmusicnews.com

DONDI’S ANGEL

By Terence Butcher

He wouldn’t go. He could be eaten. If only he could soar like Snowbird, swooping down just to snatch a Snicker’s, especially from bully Brant. He heard laughing, and his plastic jack o' lantern grinned mockingly. He peered out the window. Kids congregated. A rifle-wielding officer lectured them. Polar bears were afoot. The streets were dangerous. Even the Great Pumpkin would have stayed indoors.

Dondi pulled a parka over his chubby, costumed frame. He glanced again at X-Men #121. Snowbird morphed Wonder Twins-like into a giant owl. Dondi jammed the booklet into his pocket. Snowbird was fearless. Tonight, he needed her.

UP IN THE SKY

By Terence Butcher

The living room clock chimed. One A.M.? Jerry had tossed and turned for hours, his pillow matted with August sweat. He switched on his lamp, revealing a photo of his father. Jerry wished Pop could have heard Einstein's speech on the radio tonight. Something about peace with the Germans. Whatever.

A full moon, whitish-yellow as a bowl of Cream of Wheat, hung outside, calling to him. It looked as large as any planet, maybe bigger than Pluto.

He thought about Joe's neat drawings. A silhouette passed through the sky. An owl? To Jerry, it seemed like a figure crossing the moon.

Terrence Butcher is a writer, educator, and film festival producer. He lives just outside Los Angeles.

Days of Thanksgiving: 2020

By Ronald G. Carrillo

That melody is still in my heart

I hear it in Nyro dialect of song from Tendaberry days

Where have you gone don’t abandon me

Those gypsy men with gypsy feet

No longer at my door or in my head

Come fill my bed Autumn man with your history

I am a survivor from the HIV wars of a gay holocaust

I am still here with no fear on my own waiting for you

Rainbow man intensify my blue sky with your smile

A hello from you would do me so well

It’s a slow love spell

I will find you I have no doubt

Let me see your hand reach out

Camelot skies in Eagle Rock await you

This in between time without you is purgatory

My sins washing away with memory and ash

A devil man that held me like trash

Now the plague has passed and left me here

I have been without him like water in a desert of angels

The arroyos of Los Angeles were my valleys

Their river rocks made my feet bleed in the journey

Now I climb the peaks to reach some glory

Will I encounter God in a burning bush of my faith

Holding on but not holding out

Waiting for but not waiting around

Having faith but not twisting faith’s design in God

Expecting him but expecting nothing

I believe in the goodness of people

But I know that evil exists in some of us too

Walking in kindness I breathe free

Working within myself but open to working with others

I have fallen but I am recovering from my fall

I walk tall and occupy a small personal space

My footprint is responsible for my actions

The planet is a shared home

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.

I am Black. The original man

By Julio Rodriguez

I am Black. The original man. I am 200k years old. Engineered for travel——————————-dark melanin skin To explore. The African grassland designed to morph. ——————————Developed Kinky. Springed hair. To aerate savannah sweat. Ingenious adventurer——————————-Long arms and legs. For facilitation. Fast twitch thinking. Wired for exploration——————————-I-am you. Engineered for bold travel. In 60 thousand years. I settled the world. ——————————Deactivated my melanin. In the sunless north. Mutated some blue eyes. Designed to Morph. ——————————Kept my straight hair. That from birth I endow. Ingenious are my genes. In winter winds my hair blows. ——————————HEY, I’M TALKING TO YOU. DON’T YOU RECOGNIZE ME ? I AM YOU

Julio Rodriguez is a rare act. A cross between the late 50's beatniks playing bongos and doing radical 50's poetry and Gil Scott Heron and the "Last Poets" of the Late 60's early 70's. People have said that his poetry takes them back to NY's Harlem days... Julio Rodriguez, the Conga Poet found his nitch when he started writing poetry. He had found himself without a music band to play with, and one day combined his newly found poetry with his Afro-Latino conga rhythms. For the last few yrs he has played in many of LA’s poetry venues, concerts, nightclubs, protests, and street festivals. He sells hard copies but the CD's are also available on iTunes and CDBaby .. His poetry is simple, sincere and provocative.

REFLECTION 

By Mary Cheung

4:35 a.m.

8-27-20

As I look at my reflection,

and I see it staring back at me.

I'm not sure if I'm happy;

with how I look,  and what I see.

The years have begun to show,

on my face and body now.

My trials and tribulations,  

the good, the hard and bad times;

Everything,  leading up to now.

My eyes reflect the terror,

and twinkle with the joy.

I took it all for granted,

treated life, like my favorite toy.

Bold and daring,

I've embraced it all.

Never backing down and taking on challenges,

even if it meant I would stumble and fall.

This was me, my spirit.

I barreled through life at this pace. Impatient for things to happen.

Everything was a race.

To fall in love, to get my first job.

To freedom and being on my own.

Now I look back at my accomplishments;

am I happy in what I have, 

in my home?

As I look at my reflection,

and it stares back at me.

Skin once smooth and vibrant,

plump with promise and youth.

sags now with age,

pock marked, with life's bitter truths.

My skin, the reflection of life's wage.

As I look at my reflection, 

and it stares back at me.

Gone is that Impatient,  impetuous youth.

Inexperienced, optimistic, awkward and green.

Seasoned with life, lived, loved and all my desires and dreams.

As I look at my reflection,

and it stares back at me.

I wonder what it'll show me,

in another 5 yrs or three....

Mary Cheung is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

Limmericks

By Dan Frischman

A gay man from D.C. named Gable

Sent Mack, a transvestite, a cable.

He said "Let's be wed!"


And replying, Mack said,


"We'll do it as soon as I'm Mable."

D. Trump, the president/sadist,

Tweet-hates whoever’s the latest.

“Alec Baldwin’s outdated,

And Streep’s overrated,

But Chachi — now that guy’s the greatest!”

Dan Frischman is an Actor/writer/magician best known for his 80s/90s roles as "Arvid" on ABC’s Head of the Class, and as "Chris" on Nickelodeon’s Kenan & Kel. TV/theater director. Short magic performances at http://www.houdanny.com

Story (StoryWorth program inspired writing)

By Joseph Weiss

Not to be melodramatic or anything like that but I was pretty much at the end of my rope when I got Martin's invitation to come to Hong Kong. My marriage to Sarah finally ended when she was found half naked, head shaven, walking through the Kensington district of Berkeley in the middle of the night. You know the metaphor of the frog in the pot? If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water the frog will jump out but if you put the frog in lukewarm water and turn the heat up little by little it will stay until boiling. And so it was with me and Sarah. Her behavior was always a little quirky but I brushed that off as a part of her artistic and introverted character and when she started painting from midnight to seven in the morning and sometimes staying up for days at a time, I was numb to the heat being turned up under the pot. And then I got the call from the Berkeley police. Bernard and Sylvia met me at Camarillo State Mental Hospital. Same place that housed Charlie Parker in the 50's. It was a bleak gray institution. Sarah came out to the park bench and table where her parents and I waited. Her chestnut colored hair which was down to her waist a week ago was now chopped to a few inches. There was absolutely no emotion or life in her face and after a few minutes of her parents interrogating her, she took one look at me and panic filled her face and body. She started screaming that I was the devil and backed away from the table. I never saw her again.

I accepted Martin's invitation to come to Hong Kong. I left California, a space cadet, with the trauma of having watched someone I loved, my wife, lose her sanity. I arrived in Hong Kong with Sarah's breakdown still very fresh. Not only that but I arrived with all the Tune In and Drop Out sensibilities of the Bay Area in the late 60's. My head was bobbing to Otis Redding, Don Covey, Howard Tate, Miles, Ornette and Trane. Hong Kong was the Bee Gees and the Monkeys. Nails on a chalkboard to me. Hong Kong was also commerce. The town meant business. I just came from the land of Peace and Love, Flower Power, Make Love Not War. No time for that frivolity in Hong Kong.

For the first month Martin's mansion in the swanky area of Kowloon Tong was my home. You entered through a halfmoon gate embedded in a foot and a half, thick plastered wall that was lined with broken glass on top to deter anyone with the wrong idea.  There was Cheri Hong, Martin's beautiful wife who looked after me with such kindness, Martin's mother, Barbara, who was sure I was going to steal her son blind. Nothing personal. I'd known her for years. She was that way to all Martin's friends. And there was Chen, the chef and houseman who chased me with a butcher knife one night when I asked him for.........who the hell remembers? He was chasing me with a knife!

Maybe Chen and the knife was my cue to find other accommodations. I moved to a twelfth story, one room apartment in Wan Chai on the island of Hong Kong not far from Star Ferry that I took everyday across Victoria Harbor to my office in Martin's ad agency, Incite Communicators, Ltd. And what did I know about advertising? Nothing! Russell Cawthorn, the head of Martin's agency was a gem. He treated me quite well. He had to if he wanted to keep his job, After all I was Martin's friend from high school. Russell was a great guy and taught me a lot. Our accounts were Martin's international jeans company called Jeans East, a direct rip off from Jeans West in the States. Martin manufactured the jeans out of his  factory in the New Territories and he built retail outlets in Hong Kong, Germany and Australia. Martin was amazing: If he could think it, he could build it and make it work.

I had some great adventures while living in Hong Kong. For one thing, Wan Chai was a pretty dicey area and I became friends with a lovely, shall we say, dicey girl. And we can leave it at that.

Martin's partner was Gabe. They had been friends since Junior high school. Gabe's brother, Stephan, was a superstar hairdresser back in the early 60's. That's how it all started for Martin and Gabe. Martin went to work as a hair dresser like Gabe and his brother. Martin saw what they were charging for wigs and he knew he could make them cheaper and sell them at a profit.... a big profit.  Martin was a straight arrow, never drank or partook in drugs. Gabe.....not so much. I was happy to join Gabe when he asked if I'd like to meet a friend of his who lived on Lantau, an island a short hydrofoil hop from Hong Kong. This was a mixed up psychedelic visit with a Vietnam war deserter and his Chinese wife who lived in a home set on a plateau surrounded by beautifully terraced hillsides of tea plants. He was a junkie and Gabe and I chased the dragon with him. Can you imagine, this kid from Beverly Hills venturing so far from home in so many ways. Martin would surely not have approved!

Sam Fishman, one of my friends from Berkeley was the first to give me the news, a newspaper clipping from the San Francisco Chronicle about a young girl who took her life jumping from the Richmond San Rafael Bridge. The next day my folks called. I tried to get back right away but it was not in time to show my respects, my regrets. Years passed and I saw Sarah's mother and father at the 76 at Fairfax and Sunset. Sylvia came at me and started questioning me. Was it the LSD? If you knew she was sick, why didn't you say something? Bernard pulled her away.  I drove off.

Joseph Weiss was born and raised in Beverly Hills, California.

After years of teaching in California elementary schools he changed his career and became a picture editor

creating motion picture trailers and scores of television shows. He now lives in Palm Desert California where he

enjoys writing fiction.

Thanks for joining us! Let me know how we’re doing here and PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the arts!!

With great hope for our future

Love,

Linda Kaye

Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.

www.laartnews.com

September's Poet's Place...enjoy!!

POETS PLACE
SEPTEMBER 2020

Hello friends We’re still here!!! AND…. It’s getting closer to that time where we begin to harvest our political leanings and formulate our decisions about the upcoming presidential election. I don’t need any convincing. My mind was made back in 2016. Witnessing our America allowing and enabling people to fan the fires of hate, openly and without guilt or shame, was enough data of horror for me to fuel my personal shame of this country, especially towards the leaders. But on a sweeter note… It’s my birthday!! Ya baby!! Time to party like it’s 1999!!!! Oh yeah right. No congregating. Many of us have been celebrating our birthdays on facebook. Sharing our lonely cakes, eaten only by the celebrant. Blowing out that lone candle, wishing for the cloud of doom to open up and SHOUT. IT’S JUST A BAD DREAM!!! OPEN THE DOORS AND LET THE CROWDS BACK IN AND PARTEEEEE!!!
Oh well….
This month we are hosting some new faces and definitely celebrating our fans who are contributing almost monthly to share their thoughts of strength, wisdom and faith- that we can survive even in the darkest times.
MUCHO Thanks to all of you!!! YOU have kept me going. Bless you all!!!


Can’t Go
By Linda Kaye
8/21/20

Can’t go outside
the thought of it in this heat makes me nauseous

Can’t see my friends or at least all at once, cuz they could possibly infect me with their humor or dreadful notions of Armageddon

Can’t eat too much food
food will add disgusting weight to the middle of my body causing tremendous anxiety about becoming fat which just the thought of that makes me sick

Can’t hide my disgust of the state of the country
words containing hope are hopelessly not found in my vocabulary these days

Can’t watch the news that continually spouts lies and perpetuates the ridiculous behaviors of stupid people and raging idiots that claim science is fake
and the president is the knower of all truths

Can’t leave my room because it’s cool in there and it’s hot outside so hot that my brain starts to sizzle the moment the door to the patio is open

there’s no justice

Can’t be impulsive because the state of impulsivity requires acting without forethought acting without forethought in these days could get me jailed or worse

Can’t go there

To write or not to write
By Daniel Schack

To write or not to write. That is the question. But not to write is a lot of spite about what it is to write. But is right? Write on!   

Mr. Daniel Schack is a high school graduate and had 3 and half years of college at s.u.n.y. Buffalo and s.u.n.y. Purchase from 1982-1985. He writes poems and creates visual art. Find Daniel Schack(on poetrysoup.com) to see more. Be well all.

Sexy Rain
By Julio Rodriguez –
3-13-2020

Sexy rain
Do love ya
Come down
Get me wet

Draw your curtain
Dim your light
Pour your sound
S-h-u-s-h-i-n-g cry

Your moisture
Tour mood
Gotta tell ya
Under the hood

Sexy rain
Falling sky
Fill me up
Blue’s delight





See ya
Smell ya
Feel ya
Love ya

Light you a candle
Have your tea
Your longing moment
Feeling free

Sexy rain
Sexy rain
Sexy rain
Sexy rain
Julio Rodriguez is a rare act. A cross between the late 50's beatniks playing bongos and doing radical 50's poetry and Gil Scott Heron and the "Last Poets" of the Late 60's early 70's. People have said that his poetry takes them back to NY's Harlem days... Julio Rodriguez, the Conga Poet found his nitch when he started writing poetry. He had found himself without a music band to play with, and one day combined his newly found poetry with his Afro-Latino conga rhythms. For the last few yrs he has played in many of LA’s poetry venues, concerts, nightclubs, protests, and street festivals. When he could, (pre-covid) his favorite place to play was on York blvd during the 2nd Saturday of each month. The Conga Poet recently released his first dbl CD (one in Spanish and one in English). He sells hard copies but the CD's are also available on iTunes and CDBaby .. His poetry is simple, sincere and provocative.




DISTRACTION 
3:28 a.m. 
8-27-20
By Mary Cheung

 
Distraction is what you do; When something is too painful to think about. But you can't stop thinking about it.
Distraction is what you need; when your will power is low and you just wanna have a scoop of ice cream and you find yourself eating 3xs as much.
Distraction is your way of coping; When certain ideals don't mesh with you, but you feel powerless to change it.
Distraction is a survival tool; When Covid-19 kills any hope of a sex life, and
the idea of wearing a full body condom is just too ridiculous.
Distraction is welcomed; When you know you should exercise more, but the thought of doing it, just tires you out already.
Distraction is required; When you wake up with scary thoughts and fears for your kids and you can't talk to them about it at 3 in the a.m.
Distraction is option #2; When you have an idea for your next painting, but you don't want to go stretch a canvas and haul out the paint and brushes.
Distraction is an alarm you set; While waiting for voting day and you're sick and tired of the state of your country.
Distraction is your self-help book; When you start re-living past relationships and you drive yourself crazy with wondering where the heck is Mr Right?
Distraction is your reprevail; Because all of a sudden you can't eat like you used to in your twenties and everything gives you heart burn and makes you gassy....
Distraction is what you do to forget: That the checks aren't flowing in because stupid Covid-19 has halted your work for 6 months now!
Distraction is your cereal bowl; because you are up in the middle of the morning and it helps to quiet your growling stomach.
Distraction becomes your "To-Do" list; When your daily schedule and structure is turned upside down and you have no set schedule. 
Distraction becomes the most important thing; When your Birthdays come faster than you want and you can't seem to slow it down.
Distraction is the name of the game for me these days. 
But I gotta remember what's really important and what's not. 
So I don't miss out on my 1 shot in life, all because I got, Distracted....
Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

"At War"
by Lisa Montagne

The early morning light, 
Before I can see the world as it is, 
Looks like war. 
 
The haze of despair 
Lay on me like a blanket. 
 
The early morning air, 
Before I can breathe it in, 
Smells like war. 
 
The stench of it presses on my chest  
like an elephant’s toe. 
 
Depression lay in wait 
While Anxiety 
Rigs my brain chemistry. 
 
I see you, I say, 
As they creep up the stairs.  
 
They are stealthy, but I am 
Quieter, softer, gentler 
Pushing through the underbrush 
Of my psyche, knife 
Sheathed in the long boot 
Of my soul, 
Ready to strike. 
 
You may take thousands of lives 
A day, I say. But you! 
You will not win. 
 
I stand my ground. 
 
They shrug.  
They’ll be back for  
Another round. 


Lisa Montagne, Ed.D.

A native of Southern California, Lisa Montagne, Ed.D., is a poet, writer, artist, and college English professor who specializes in online learning. She has read her poetry to audiences in Los Angeles, Portland and Tampa, including at the Beyond Baroque poetry center and for Writ Large Press and PenWriter America.  She has been published by The Ear literary and art magazine, the Variant Literature Journal, Boomer Reviews, and Running Wild Press.


America: Mystery Babylon
By Ronald Carrillo, August 2020
Prelude:
America on the brink
Will she sink like a stone
Or will she be able to reverse her downward spiral
Will her people be picked to the bone
Or will the one per cent be revealed to have no soul

Interlude:
Our founding fathers writing hypocrisy democracy
The thirteen becoming one to form our nation
Separating infant colonies from her mother country
This child was born with serious birth defects
The infant country was Siamese in a north south divide
These twin selves could not live as one
Slavery was a luxury for the confederate gentry
However Dixieland was no friend of the black man
Kidnapped these people were reduced to a foul name
The geographical schism created a caste system
Liberty with cotton fields, lynching’s and plantations of shame

Absolutely a constitutional contradiction to enslave one race
A promise of freedom to form a more perfect union
Promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty
But only for white Christian men and their prosperity
Abstract constructs that remain in a dream space
For the immigrant refuse coming to Liberty’s shore
It’s a Ponzi scheme for a cheap labor force
That rushes through the turnstile of a false democracy
Like Rome her colossal skyscrapers were forged
Her infrastructure laid down on the backs of these huddled masses
Mother of exiles the whore of Babylon beckons the tired and poor
She offers nothing but an empty welcome and a hollow cry
This stony mother has no milk
No real nourishment for the homeless and tempest-tossed
Her manifest destiny went from coast to coast
Decimating the indigenous peoples and stealing their land
Warring on a weaker southern neighbor to seal the deal
Her industrial revolution brought more moths to her flame
Her poisonous perfume of power was now in full gear
The American experiment seemed invincible and real
The dreamers surviving on placebos
And still yearning to breathe free in her red, white and blue
Slavery now exchanged for government penitentiaries
The cruel pecking order of this democracy maintains the status quo
A malleable middle class fortifies the rich and creates an illusion
The bottom feeders don’t matter just fill the gap
They are the compost heap of progress
And the quicksand of the middle class can bullish or bearlike
Depending on the fickle stock market of Wall Street
She’ll go to war to make more greenbacks
She’ll interfere with other governments
To confiscate their natural resources
She’ll topple foreign leaders that don’t bend to her rules
She creates government gangs of security with impressive acronyms
She’ll assassinate her own leaders that don’t fall into line
Beware the military complex of her nature
This false mother condones crimes against her own people
She went off the rails of her own making morphing into a monster
Planned parenthoods promoting a policy of disguised eugenics
Public education to populate America’s factories
But an Ivy League education for the wealthy
G.I. bills to lure the poor to war
And loopholes in the law for the financially advantaged
The middle class tow the line and have been thrown a bone
Ball and chained with a mortgage for thirty years
And the underclass in ghettos, barrios and government projects
Low in-come with credit card enticements toward bankruptcy
Gee the American pie is covered with flies for the poor
The middle class gets a small slice then gets to pay taxes

She had to realize her dream of empire
She would not occupy foreign lands only devise a devious plan
Of financial dependency to rob 3rd world countries of their resources
She was a global player standing on the world stage
And creating a web of financial deceit
Homeless devastation all across this great nation
Paupers of depression make their beds of cruel concrete
Encampments of sorrow in the cold Los Angeles night
America’s fruited plain has become a junkyard of pain
A red, white and blue stain of despair
In the bowels of her once prosperous cities
Scarecrows once men no longer defend dignity
America you who could of done so much
Fell far short of your democratic potential
Was it not essential to stretch yourself for the greater good

Postlude:
Cool winds blow in from the land of the red dragon
Bringing in a virus to topple capitalism
Lilac vines spread their sweet scent despite the scourge
Freedom wavers quarantined and waiting for vaccines






Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.


Janet Grey states- This work is from a writing group session.  We were told to create a Saint with a certain ability that we determined ourselves.
 
SAINT GENEVIEVE
by Janet Grey


From her earliest years, Saint Genevieve was different. Blind to the world despite her eyes’ absolute ability to see, she was consumed by shadows — not only in her perception, but her thoughts and dreams were shadowy, muted, foggy and depressed, and it was as though a giant cloud had invaded her world and was refusing to finally rain and wither away.  No one could understand how this could be, with her beautiful clear blue eyes that reflected all the rainbow of colors that surrounded her and her loved ones, Those giant crystal eyes… Every healer for miles around had deemed them to be perfectly healthy and able to see better than most others’ might.  Yet ask her to describe something in front of her, and she could not. She could “see" but she just could or would not see.  And so it was that her family learned of her inner world, a bright and shiny place where colors were infinite, and stretched in every direction in hues unknown to the others, rendering her descriptions impossible for anyone in her entourage to comprehend.  The imaginary places she’d describe were so beautiful that she would cry with joy in her meditations, but dreams brought about quite a different experience. 
 
We were then told to choose from the “7 Deadly Sins” and write a first person narrative about the created saint from that standpoint.


LUST
Being a patron saint of sight and perception had its down sides.  As she grew older, Genevieve became accustomed to her extrasensory abilities and accepted the fact that not only could she experience beauty she could not really “see”, but she could actually see the probable, the possible and she could see passion.  And so it was that one sunny summer day, a young man passed her by and she felt a strange sensation all over her body — a throbbing that started behind her eyeballs and spread out and up and through her sockets in a way that should have burned or ached or disturbed her in some other way. Yet, on the contrary, this feeling was warm and delicious and something she’d never known before yet something she wanted so desperately to know more, much more of, and suddenly the possibility and probability that she could, at that moment, actually see, was that of a passionate entanglement with this seemingly inconsequential young man.  And so she found herself sitting for hours on end “seeing” and "seeing” and (hear Heavy Breathing here) “seeing” again — the passionate embrace that very well could be and “seeing” some more, so that the sensations she experienced were so intense that her cries and sighs and moans of ecstasy could be heard for miles around her palace, with its infinite acoustic halls, so that the echoes were further emphasized and emanated freely throughout the land.  Her patrons gathered, surrounding her home and gazing up at the windows with wonder, attempting to make sense of it all, lamenting and loathing the lusty laughter that penetrated their otherwise peaceful and silent existence.  And as time went on, and the moans and groans, rather than subside, instead became louder and longer, more emphatic and intense, and her lust became legendary and her special sight the stuff of wrath and ridicule, her canonization was called into question and her cacophony of catcalls took over whatever else one might have thought about her before that fateful day when the path of a young man changed the course of her life, and that of so many others, so destroyed were they at the thought of having lost their beloved Saint to the languid lusty world into which she had fallen.  
And the young man, the object of this Legendary Lust, having passively pushed a domino effect into actions so catastrophic in his wake as to alter the course of history itself, continued, oblivious, on his merry way through life, never the wiser.

Janet Grey is an avid traveler, photographer (www.greymattersphotos.com), and the Founder of TravelDrivers.com, a one-stop stop for exceptional private driver-guides worldwide.
Janet stays sane in the time of Covid-19 by walking the charming neighborhoods that are scattered throughout LA, and sharing shots of her discoveries on her @walkingwithjanet facebook page.  She is also the creator of the Pretty Postcard Project, inspiring others to spread love and appreciation in these trying times, while supporting our ailing postal service.  
Janet lives in Silverlake, California, USA.



In The Belly
By The Poetess Reigns aka JackieRay Phillips

In the Belly of the Loveland
Does innocent souls meet
Dancing above the sheets
Seductive, exotic and free

It’s that Belly of the Loveland
Souls that are so deep
So deep & primitive
Certain glands must secrete

In that Belly of the Loveland
Let it take you there
Without a worry
Without a care

Dancing in the pale moonlight
In the Belly of the Loveland

Will she be free?
Exotic & Sultry?

Will she be free?

In the Belly of the Loveland
That is she
It is free!

The Belly
The Loveland
And...
Me!

The Poetess Reigns Again!

The Poetess Reigns aka JackieRay Phillips is Creator of The Poetry of Justice Show, Where Social Consciousness Meets The Arts. The Show is designed to spark the interest and awareness of social diversity ranging from arts, entertainment and social justice at large. Catch The Poetry of Justice Show Saturday nights 6:00-8:00pm PST Live @Yikesradio.com and @AcceleratedRadio.net in addition to all other podcast streaming platforms. You may also view and subscribe to the Show’s YouTube channel @The POJ Show With JackieRay. Follow us on IG @The POJ Show With JackieRay and FB @ The Poetry of Justice Show and JackieRay Phillips.
Thanks for joining us! Let me know how we’re doing here and PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the arts!!
With great hope for our future
Love,
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.


August has Arrived! Poet's Place. Enjoy!

POETS PLACE
AUGUST 2020

AUGUST!!!! What? How did we get to August so fast! Is it me or am I getting …can’t, won’t say it. The “O” word. This month will mark the 5th month of the lockdown, stay at home, quarantine, social distancing, stir craziness!!! Writing and eating has kept me alive, but sane?? No way!!!

Hey everyone, I can’t thank you enough for keeping this column alive! Keep those poems and stories coming! Everyone is welcome! Including YOU!!!
ENJOY!!!

On a slant
By Linda Kaye
7/8/20

leaning towards a new leaning

drifting without understanding the
drift

reaching for the light to run from the darkness
wasting time in a world full of waste

daydreaming during my nightmare

seeing but not looking

ghosted during lovemaking
being chastised while in chastity
cripples mentally forever
a normal abnormality
alone but not lonely
happy but not happy

rusty brain
ruthless atrophy
loveless body, body less loved
choked out
loss of guile
relative reality
has come to pass


Illumination 
By Mary Cheung
5-10-20 -7-25-20
12:23pm

Warm golden light,
Burning through the haze.
Dawning of my consciousness,
Pulling me out of my daze.

Clicks into focus and its clear to me now.
The things that I have and I am grateful for.
As opposed to the greedy wanting,
That obscured me from before.

Its easy to get lost,
Lose your direction.
Drowning in our own needs,
Is it a necessity?
Or just our own greed?

Moving in automation from one day to the next.

sometimes it takes the end of the world drama to sharpen your view.
Its not the what I want and don’t have.
But the what I have and am lucky to have that counts.

I see it, its clear.
Tragedy brings us focus, shows us what is dear.

Lets not want for the end,
To move us to make amends.
Live each day like its special.
Because it is.

Treat our fellow humans and oneself with kindness and love.
Because it's deserved.


I've planted the seed,
Now let it grow.
Let the wonder and joys of life be revealed to you,
    and
        illuminate your soul.
Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.



Cathay De Grande
By Reverend Dan Buhler
1982

In 1982, my favorite literally underground place to hear live music was the Cathay De Grande, a venue located in the basement space of what was once the Nickodell restaurant, a popular lunchtime watering hole during the Hollywood studios heyday.  It was located one street South of Hollywood Blvd. and one street East of Vine Street, at the corner of Selma and Argyle Avenues. In 1980, the space had been renamed Cathay de Grande and now housed a Mandarin restaurant at the street level and downstairs a person could find one of the most adventurous bookers of live punk and underground music in the city, and one never knew what would happen after going down the dark stairway for an evening’s entertainment. The downstairs venue was dark but not completely unfriendly, dingy but still somehow charming, but with plenty of danger still lurking around the edges of the room.  

Monday nights at the Cathay de Grande were often “Blue Mondays”, my favorite night at the club, where one could see (In My Humble Opinion) the premiere blues-with-punk-attitude bar band in Los Angeles, Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs.  This was an extremely scruffy band that got by on musical fury and drunken charm. Top Jimmy, born one James Paul Koncek, got his nickname a few years earlier while he was working at the late night L.A. eatery, Top Taco.  Later, he became the roadie for the Los Angeles poety-punk band X, even appearing with them during their segment in Penelope Spherris’ Los Angeles punk documentary, The Delcline of Western Civilization, where X bassist and vocalist John Doe can be seen giving Jimmy a tattoo.  During a sound check for an X concert, Top Jimmy came onstage and did an impromptu performance of The Doors’ Roadhouse Blues upon which everyone discovered that he possessed an incredible blues howl.  Very quickly, Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs were formed and from the start they were a dirty, ugly, soulful band that could heat up the room and everybody in it. 

For a young 21 year old beer drinker like me, driving up to Hollywood for a Blue Monday at the Cathay de Grande was the high point of my week.  I usually had Monday nights off from work at Tower, since they had me working closing most of the other days I worked.  The store manager at the time really didn’t like me and was always trying to fire me for some perceived infraction or another.  He decided to annoy me by giving me the worst work shift in Tower history:  Tuesday, 5pm to 2am, so that the floors could get waxed after midnight, Wednesday Off, Thursday 4 to midnight, Friday, 4 to midnight with the Metal Boys (a portion of the Tower work crew that loved playing local metal albums way too freaking loud), Saturday 4 to midnight with the Metal Boys again, Sunday 9am - 5pm (yes AM!), and Monday I had off.  Thank goodness.  On one particular Monday night, my friend Dave and I drove the thirty miles up from Long Beach to the Cathay de Grande and were ready to hear some monster rhythm & blues.  Dave was the husband of a girl I dated in High School.  At the time, my social life was so bad that I was actually hanging out with my ex-girlfriend’s husband. Dave got into my troublesome 1972 Capri and we made our way to the big city.  When we arrived at the Cathay de Grande, we headed downstairs, got some beer, got a booth near the band and prepared to get drunk and kick out some jams.  Seeing a band inside the Cathay gave me a feeling of what seeing the Beatles at the Carvern Club in Germany might have been like.  The darkness of the club, the intensity of the music were so different from every other part of my life.  I felt cool at the Cathay, or, as cool as I could, being intensely not cool.  Classic Chess blues was playing over the scratchy sound system, and Dave and I quickly downed our first round.  I was feeling good.  Suddenly, there was a tap on my shoulder.  It was Mari.

Jesus Fucking Christ.  Mari.  The girl who only one year earlier tore my young passionate, romantic, utterly naive heart completely out of my chest and ground it into pulp with the nonchalance of somebody throwing away a cigarette butt.  Let’s flashback to 1980 when I first started working at the Tower Records store in Anaheim, and I was really just happy to be working in any record shop since the one that I had been working at (Billboard Record & Tapes, 10900 Los Alamitos Blvd in the Los Alamitos Plaza in the city of, you guessed it, Los Alamitos) just went out of business.  I was thrilled to be at Tower, then the “largest record store in the known universe” (according to their radio ads) and I was learning the ropes of the big leagues of the retail record industry. One day, while I was doing an inventory of Polygram rock albums, the cool punk girl that I worked with but never really talked to sided over and begun to flirt, coyly asking if my dental retainer, which I wore in an attempt to correct sixteen years of poor decisions from my previous dentist and orthodontist, was any impairment in kissing.  Her name was Mari and she was a red hair pixie punk who was five years older than me, dug glam rock, drove a 1955 Ford Fairlane and somehow seemed to find me attractive.  Flattered, we were soon dating, and I was stoked to be hanging out with a real live genuine punk rock and roll girl.  It was like my high school rock and roll dreams had come true.  I was working for the best and largest record store in the country and I had a punk rock girlfriend.  For a twenty year old kid I was living the life.  We would hang out in her bedroom at her parents apartment in Garden Grove, listening to the latest punk and new wave imports before getting busy with youthful exuberance. Despite my hanging around in her bedroom, Mari’s parents were always very nice to me, and I was on good terms with them.  She was a mom and her dad was a proud retired fireman. I was trusted enough that I was told about Mari’s older brother who had committed suicide a few years earlier.  I’m glad that they felt that they could confide in me.  Eventually, Mari and I were spending most every evening together and things were going along great until a few months later when Mari got very sick and had to go into the hospital for several weeks.  I would visit her after work and on her better days, she would show me the many stethoscopes that she had stolen from the hospital staff during her stay.  When she got healthy enough to leave the hospital, the first thing she did was to get herself transferred from the Anaheim Tower Records store to the Tower Records store on Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood.  The BIG Tower.  At the time, the Sunset Strip Tower was the Mecca for all serious record shoppers, and being able to get a job there was considered very choice.  She got a job working in the newly-opened Tower Video Annex on the other side of Sunset Blvd, a video store that, like it’s record store companion across the street, carried an incredible collection of videos, giving the store quite a bit of prestige. She moved out of her parents apartment and found a apartment with a couple of roommates somewhere in Hollywood.  She was always busy and we saw little of each other but being a young romantic I still though we were a couple.  That all changed one day when she came back to the Anaheim Tower to visit me for lunch.  She picked me up in her ’55 Ford Fairlane and we got some fast food, and then she suggested that we go to a nearby park.  That sounded great!  It was so good to see her, but I could tell she had something on her mind.  I asked her what was up.  “I’m seeing a guy who does heroin,” she stated matter of factly.  “I wanted you to know, I’m really sorry”.  That’s what she said, that she was seeing a guy who did heroin and that she was really sorry.  She just slammed in the gut with a crowbar and she was really sorry.  I stayed cool on the outside even though I was completely imploding inside.  She might have kept talking but I heard little else after that, and after she drove me back to work I walked quietly into the back room.  I was keeping my cool just barely, a when my co-workers asked how my lunch with Mari had been, I froze.  I tried to hold my emotions but instantly every single speck of agony, loneliness and sadness erupted out of my mouth right in front of my coworkers and I cried loudly the wail of every dumped guy who was ever dumped before me.  Throughly embarrassed but unable to stop sobbing, I ran into the dingy employee restroom and continued to cry, becoming soggy with my tears.  After about twenty minutes or so of my wailing, my co-workers eventually got me out of the small room and allowed me to mourn in the managers office for the remainder of my shift.  I was completely shattered.  All my self-confidence was gone.  I knew I was alone, and while I did not want to continue, I did. But I sure was a mess.

And now it was a year later, I’m at the the Cathay de Grande on Blue Monday waiting to hear my favorite band Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs and then all of a sudden she pops in out of nowhere.  I was stunned.  She looked a little goofy in a black cowboy outfit, but otherwise she looked like Mari.  Thank goodness Dave was there.  He reminded me to play cool, and I did, giving a casual “hey” and “how’s work”.  She talked but I didn’t really hear her in the loud club.  She seemed to be by herself, but I did not invite her to sit with Dave and me.  She then left and Dave got us a couple more beers.  

Around eleven o’clock or so, Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs started their set and it was as if the gods of the blues themselves were pushing the Rhythm Pigs to play harder than I had ever seen them, with Steve Berlin wailing on the saxophone, Carlos Guitarlos strangling his lead guitar, Dave Drive obliterating his drums, Gil T. thumping the bass and Dig the Pig chugging away on rhythm, the Pigs were making having a good time in a room with my ex-girlfriend as easy as it could be.  But even the mighty Rhythm Pigs only had so much power.

When the Pigs finished their set, some punk guy I didn’t know came up to me and said that the girl I had been talking with earlier was now passed out on the floor.  Concerned, I got up to take a look and found Mari so completely out of it that neither splashing water on her face nor shaking her would get any reaction.  I then knew my evening was about to change.  Fortunately she was breathing and I gave Dave the keys to my Capri and told him to get himself back to Long Beach and that I would get my car back tomorrow somehow.  Mari’s purse had somehow not been stolen and inside I found the keys to her Ford Fairlane.  I slung Mari on my back (which was not easy considering she was nothing but dead weight at the time and totally not helping) and trudged up the stairway back to street level, where I set her butt on the floor of the tile lobby of the Cathay, and set about to look for her car.  She was utterly out of it, but I was able to lean her against the wall without too much trouble.  Her eyes were closed and she was completely sweated through her clothes. I headed to the door. 

“Hey! You can’t leave her here!” shouted the Cathay doorman.

“I’m not leaving her here, I’m going to go look for her fuckin’ car!”

“Bullshit!” shouted the guy, “You can’t leave her here!”

“Look!” I said, “Here’s my damn wallet!” I tucked my wallet down the unconsious girl’s top.  This seemed to placate the doorman.  Then Mari immediately projectile vomited all over herself and the floor.  

“I’ll be right back I swear”, I told the doorman.  He cursed and then stopped himself, with a look that said he knew I was about to have a rotten time.  I ran out the door and started to look for Mari’s Fairlane which was fortunately just around the corner.  I came back to the lobby to the received doorman and scooped up Mari who had thrown up a few more times but was still unconscious.  As I was carrying her to the car in the cold night, some clown asked “What did she take?” to which I replied “Fuck if I know”.  I got her in the front seat of the Fairlane, a big comfortable bench seat, and leaned her over so that she could lie down with head resting on my lap.  I started the car and headed off.  

But where?  I had absolutely no idea where she lived in Hollywood, and she wasn’t talking.  I didn’t know any of her friends in Hollywood.  The only people in her circle that I did know were her parents who lived a good 45 miles away, in the city of Garden Grove.  I had no other choice.  I headed the car to the entrance of the 101 Freeway South, and as I did, Mari’s back arched and she immediately vomited a seeming endless flow of smelly warm puke, which collected between my pants legs and ran down onto the upholstery of the Fairlane. This was going to be a very long, wet ride.  She burbled a few attempts at words, but mostly just vomited.  I turned on the radio and shook my head at my situation.  Mari continued to vomit between my legs as I drove the length of the Harbor Freeway and then down the San Diego Freeway into Long Beach.  Once in Long Beach, I realized that I still had not contacted her parents to let them know about the wet vomiting package I was about to bring to their door.  I stopped the car at the only place that I knew was open in Long Beach, the 7/11 store near the airport.  Once I parked, I slid myself out from underneath Mari’s head, leaned her against the passenger window and walked my puke covered self inside the store.  The clerk was nonplused.  I got an orange juice and some water, paid, walked my puke covered self outside to the payphone and called directory assistance.  They had a listing for Mari’s last name in Garden Grove.  They connected me to the number.

It was about 3 in the morning.

“Hello Mr. T_____?  Hi, this is Dan, Mari’s old boyfriend, remember me?  Well uh, I have to tell you that I was at a club in Hollywood tonight and I found Mari passed out on the floor and I couldn’t leave her there but didn’t know where to bring her so I all I could come up with was bringing her back to your place if that’s okay.”

Of course It was, and I drove to Garden Grove with Mari continuing to throw up on my pants every now and then. Arriving at her parents apartment, I again flung her on my back, and up the stairs to her parents apartment.  When I made it to the door, I rang the bell and both her parents answered.  They must have turned her old bedroom into another space, for they had a made a makeshift space on the living room floor, with an inch of towels padding her from the floor.  Her father helped her off my back, as she was covered in puke and still mostly unconscious.  I explained the evening to them briefly and her mother thanked me for bringing her to them.  I really had no other option.  

“Somebody must have slipped her a mickey”, her father said and I had to agree.  He was very grateful and offered to drive me and my puke-covered clothes the ten miles back to Long beach.  I accepted the offer and as we walked to his car I mentioned that Mari’s car interior was a bit of a mess.  He said he wasn’t too worried about it, and I gingerly got into his car and sat my puke covered pants on the clean towels that Mari’s mom had provided.  When I got home, I entered the backyard through the side gate, kicked off my shoes and peeled my vomit covered clothes off my cold damp legs.  A shower had never felt so good.

Reverend Dan Buhler has been a late-night radio institution in Los Angeles since 1996, playing the best Rock ‘n’ Roll music of the last 100 years on his award-winning, late-night KXLU radio program Music for Nimrods. He is a member of the Bloody Brains band and lives in Northeast Los Angeles with his wife Carol and two cats, Junior and Baby Lux.
RevDan airs Music for Nimrods on KXLU 88.9 FM on Friday nights early Saturday morning from 3-6AM; Wednesdays at 3-6PM on 88.9FM KXLU and Sundays 4-7pm LIVE on TWITCH.TV/reverenddankxlu.com



ESSENCE OF BEAUTY
By The Poetess Reigns
July 31, 2020


What is love?
But a LOVE...
A Love that is meek
With fantasies to seek

What is an emotion?
Whipping roars within the ocean
The ocean deep
As the dancing clouds meet

What is beauty?
Where does it meet?
Beyond the surface
And between the Sweet

The Sweet sensations of lust
Hidden between the bust
Of the WOMAN
Streaming across her hand

Gifting into the land of beauty
Is it merely skin deep?
When the Orpheus
Of the orchestra speaks

Into the hearts of men
Women and children descend
Into a musical lyre
What the dramatical theory

Of Life
Living beyond strife
Into the Abyss
While the souls coexist

Amongst the Elite
Sipping the wine of the sweet
Nectar of the fruit
Topping the trees roots

Seductive is Thee
Essence of BEAUTY

The Poetess Reigns aka JackieRay Phillips is Creator of The Poetry of Justice Show, Where Social Consciousness Meets The Arts. The Show is designed to spark the interest and awareness of social diversity ranging from arts, entertainment and social justice at large. Catch The Poetry of Justice Show Saturday nights 6:00-8:00pm PST Live @Yikesradio.com and @AcceleratedRadio.net in addition to all other podcast streaming platforms. You may also view and subscribe to the Show’s YouTube channel @The POJ Show With JackieRay. Follow us on IG @The POJ Show With JackieRay and FB @ The Poetry of Justice Show and JackieRay Phillips.



August Prayer: 2020
By Ronald G. Carrillo

These days are still
With something foul lurking in the air
Only the wind spreading truths
We are all linked together in this viral pool of humanity
From China to California
Our vanity gods hitting upon hard times
Paying for centuries of environmental crimes
Viral and bacterial fines being handed down
The planet knows how to heal itself
Mother Nature the divine feminine healer and protector
Allowing man to conjure his own vectors
Like a teenager in rebellion playing with his own devices
Mother Earth copes despite man’s interferences
This viral storm a pandemic of pandemonium will pass
But the most fragile will be on the frontlines of its killing fields
Then the darkness will subside and meld into light
Purple sonata of song from skyscrapers of pain and privilege
Female voices that trace our history in blood
Chitlin circuit performers lead the way with gospel support
The stain of slavery is a plague ripping the stars and stripes apart
She is losing her democratic center and trust under God
A viral pandemic judgement to shake the nation awake
Her people are comatose in a false liberty
How long can this last
This hard fall toward collapse
The financial imbalance is extreme bordering on obscene
We are back to the days of King Louie and the guillotine
Pointing the finger of blame on our national shame
The weak and poor endure most of the attack
Protests on the streets leave fires burning
While capitalist hyenas exploit this financial flatline
Capitalism on its deathbed
The storm up ahead for the rest of us to deal with
When it is not even gone yet the vultures already feasting
Corporate capitalism cannibalizing the red, white and blue
Lady liberty has lost her democratic moorings
The violent history of the stars and stripes is in our blood
Through genocide, slavery and myth
She will reach her terrible end
The racial dam is broken
Leaking for years and unattended
Her cracks have surged with willful neglect
Her hardened heart against some of her people is sinful
America reflect and turn back to founding principles
Exclusion must be erased from our national soul
We can move forward and breathe free
Finally realizing our greatness with no ties to political pompousness
No hollow trumpets sound
No fear mongering to divide the people
Discovering once again our evolved common ground

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.



Thanks for joining us! Let me know how we’re doing here and PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the arts!!
With great hope for our future
Love,
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.


It's July! Here's your Monthly Poetry from Sweet Linda Kaye and her Friends!

POETS PLACE
JULY 2020


July!!! Yes. Let the fireworks begin!! Wait… They’ve already started. Nightly, since the pandemic began. Sigh. I’ve read in the local papers that it has become quite the problem in our neighborhoods. Let’s pray there are no fires due to the epidemic of pyromaniacs! Most of us are staying safe and following the precautions of wearing masks in public and actively, sometimes hourly hand sanitizing. I know I am. With over 30 years of hospital work as a social worker, I am fully versed and trained in infection control procedures. Not trying to out anyone, but before the pandemic, I had seen many a health care worker not washing their hands in between caring for patients, and coming to work sick and not wearing a mask. As have many of us! DOH! And you wonder why we’re in the bad shape that we’re in!! Stay safe everyone.

This month we are hosting some new writers and poets from afar. Even some celebs!!! I hope you are enjoying the column! I know I am!!!

KEEP UP THE GOOD AND SAFE WORK!! AND HAVE FAITH WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS!!!!

No Fanfare
by Linda Kaye
6/2020

It was over. Done. She had spent the last difficult and challenging days of her working career, saying her last goodbyes and farewells to her long-term therapy clients, support staff and to one of the best bosses of her career. This time was especially sad, choking back salty tears, sometimes expressing them, allowing them to lightly trickle down her face, alone, reflecting on the many hours spent in her office, counseling clients as well as offering her educated and supportive advice to countless suffering individuals who were dealing with an array of mental illnesses, that, because they couldn’t problem solve effectively, their lives were often in shambles. Knowing she did her best to help, she felt hopeful they’d be okay and would use the tools she had provided them. These people and countless others, were her bittersweet thoughts on the last day before leaving her office.

She was leaving with all her cherished posters of Bowie, the old Fellini movie posters, once belonging to her husband, whom she had ransacked from his office when he retired and put them in hers. She took the vintage childhood game puzzle with her that many of the clients, including her, labored over for months. This one particular puzzle represented the countless hours she spent bonding and developing trusting relationships with her clients which often helped to soften the upcoming discussions of the hardships they had experienced throughout their lives and gave them a comfortable psychological and supportive place which to begin the healing process. No way was she leaving that puzzle behind! She wanted, needed to take some remembrances from her office to begin the newly imposed social distancing. She hoped that having these items near her would add some comfort for her now that she was to work from home.

Now what? What she really had to face was-what now? Since the production of her new poetry musical was on hold till the quarantine was lifted, and that social distancing was the new rule due to the pandemic crisis from the virus-Covid19-she laughed loudly, unhappily, almost a scream. Her clients basically had been insisting all along that she would be bored once retired “what are you going to do when you retire? They mused. “Well I have a whole other life!” She chuckled. What was that line from the Bible she thought? “You make plans and God laughs?” Face that now. What was she going to do now that everything that was planned had come to a screeching halt! Bam! She felt as though she was bouncing off a cliff hanging by a long bungee cord just swinging up and down and up and down. Bouncing endlessly without the stability of her plan. Many of her friends it seemed we’re also bouncing around trying to figure out how to cope with this new world order. Why were her coping skills fraying at the edges? Failing her to make sense of this catastrophe?

Apparently, as she finally realized, was that Her catastrophe was fraught with an adjustment to life without work. The same advice that she has passed on to many a client, friend or family member, that any new change in your life needs time for adjustment. Breath.

She was retiring from a lengthy career of more than 30 years in the helping profession as a social worker. Yes. Helping hundreds of people work through devastating illnesses, crisis, traumas of all sorts, mental illness, significant deaths and dying. Where was her safety net? Who, she thought, could help her through this compounded loss? Everywhere she turned people were going nuts. Panicking about the current virus crisis and were super paranoid about getting sick. Who is ill? Who had symptoms? What were the symptoms? How are we supposed to behave? Where did this virus come from? Who was to blame? Thankfully years of social work education and experience had taught her to accept what she could control, such as her own response to these new rules and changes to societal norms- no touching no hugging no handshakes and social distancing 6 feet apart from everyone until? No one really knew. It wasn’t apparent yet. The evolution of this new world order would pan out eventually. The administration’s initial lack of concern, “this will blow over attitude“ hadn’t been fully realized at the beginning. She only felt her own painful confusion that was hitting her where it counts- in the gut. Throughout her life she had experienced an array of stomach problems due to life‘s challenges and stressors provided by an unwanted dysfunctional and lackadaisical parental upbringing in childhood. Although she, thank goodness, learned to survive her childhood experiences escaping from youthful omnipotent impulsive situational decisions that could’ve been fatal, those near misses had helped to strengthen her courage to survive- mostly unconscious and not recognized until she landed super depressed in therapy but that’s another story.

OK so now what? Retired, home 24/7, no poetry production to produce.
No goodbye party from work, everyone’s paranoid, freaking out thinking the worst-case scenarios. The daily headaches started up again, sore muscles from the gardening work and the newly found walk in the hood. Getting diarrhea from eating all the wrong foods not IBS friendly, experiencing phantom chest pains- checking her temperature, sometimes hourly for the slightest possible increase in temperature. Desperately wanting to go somewhere anywhere! Was anxiety entering into her purview of unwanted symptoms?
As the hours turned into days, then weeks, the hillsides began to call. The rustling of the leaves on the patio whispered their secrets of peaceful surrender sharing their happiness from the new attention given to them. They showed their appreciation by singing and harmonizing their praises of new growth and luster. Not only did she recognize and begin to adapt to this next chapter in her life did her body begin to heal from a lifelong internal suffering of gastric pain. Her 30 years plus career of service to others had come to a close and although there was no public fanfare- her garden spoke volumes of praise, which quieted and calmed her heart.

The Earth on a ventilator
by Inessa Love


Symptoms:
raising temperature
difficulty breathing
plunging oxygen levels Diagnosis:
the Earth got COVID 19
No wonder this wicked disease targets our lungs
To keep breathing we need
The feverish Earth is pleading for help, sending us a message to
We gotta stop
large sporting events
clean air s t o p
huge entertainment industry
massive cruise liners with pools and casinos
do not gather in crowds
We gotta stop
filling up the landfills with things we buy and throw away stampede traveling like the Earth is our backyard constantly running away from the discontent
We gotta stop
nursing homes
prisons
factory farming
stay home
maintain social distance
The virus is showing us our disgrace that we can’t run away from by simply
washing our hands
As the smog clears we can see more clearly what we are doing to the Mother Earth
We gotta stop
being the viruses inside its body
multiplying incessantly
using up our host’s resources cutting down its oxygen supplies
We gotta stop consuming
entertaining distracting
our young are spared from the karmic debt the rest of us have to pay
for our overindulgence
the poor, sick and frail are more likely to die but not without infecting the rest
we cannot build borders tall enough to protect us from the global misery we have created
the wildfire is ravaging the human race
like we have ravaged the Earth
We gotta stop
slow down
the Earth needs to breathe too.

Inessa Love
Professor
Department of Economics
University of Hawaii at Manoa


DRINKING PISCO SOURS WITH NERUDA
by Richard Q Russeth

A poet is an erratic bus
that must wait on
its good-for-nothing driver,
which requires such patience
that, sooner or later,
even the most patient
will try to drive the bus themselves.
Not because they can,
but in hopes that
the driver will hurry back to save them.
but often as not, he does not,
and there is a spectacular crash,
leaving words scattered
and dying everywhere
on a vast, white plain.

Simpler to simply wait
until the driver returns,
red-faced and drunk,
from drinking round after round
of pisco sours with Neruda
under the hot Chilean sun,
and then follow his lucid directions
to a poem that is but merely
three days drive, allowing ample time
for strong coffee with bell hooks
and Maya Angelou
along the crooked way.

Richard Q Russeth
Baker, Poet, Conjuror, Photographer, Attorney
www.richardqrusseth.com

The Weekend I Thought I Had COVID

by Dan Frischman

I went to sleep just after 11 pm last Thursday. At 2 a.m., I was jerked awake by a frightening reality: I was gasping for air, and the effort wasn’t going at all well. I leapt out of bed, panic-stricken, struggling to draw in breath. I made the loud, hellish sounds you’d expect in this situation, and though I was alone, any witness would have been fairly certain I was on my way to becoming a statistic.

When the attack ebbed a minute later, I was propped against my dresser, sweaty, shaking, and wheezing intensely. My first thought: It’s real. This is real. I have Covid. How...did...I get it?!

Was it the checkout clerk at my local supermarket a few days before who wore neither a mask nor gloves? When I questioned him about it, he said, “Yeah, I use a hand sanitizer whenever I can,” which I read to mean not since Tuesday. That was it?!

Well, I’m also a bit slow to wash my hands in general, and I never washed the food containers or boxes I brought into the house. (The regular mail, I was very careful with. Go figure.) So the clerk? The packages? Other than that, I’ve been very careful, but I’d apparently made that sole mistake the virus is lying in wait for.

My chest hurt for hours after the attack, perhaps due to the gasping or maybe on account of the well-advertised Covid symptoms. The deep, dry coughing fits that immediately followed, for instance, were so forceful that I shut my windows in case neighbors heard me, leading them to call an ambulance. I considered 911 myself, but even though hospitals have been our heroes, Covid ward images on TV had me likening them to the Hotel California.

I decided to wait it out, though even when my breathing situation returned to relative normalcy, I couldn’t sleep — I was too anxious to even shut my eyes, fearful of a second, worse strike. I lay there instead, monitoring my every twitch.

In the darkness, the bleak thoughts crept into my mind until they were dancing about unencumbered:

Is my Will what I want it to be? Yes.

Have I filled out my health directive? Yes, it’s sitting in a pile of papers...in a box...somewhere.

My Trust and Power of Attorney in place? Yeah, no, been meaning to get to those for a few decades.

And then my mind inexorably dropped to the sunken place:

Are there any final words I want to say to anybody, other than the standard “I love you’s?” Yes, and those things will be said. One apology is involved, and one simple “Thank you” to someone I’m no longer in touch with.

Next: In that moment, I realized I want to be buried rather than cremated. Why? I don’t know, it suddenly felt suitable to me, and have you ever watched a marshmallow roast? Okay, right? Death itself, I decided, I could accept if this was indeed it for me. There were many centuries before this that I wasn’t around, and that didn’t seem to bother me much, so why worry about the next few?

And finally, what do I want to be buried with, and where should I write it down? I realized, oddly, that the short list included a magic trick, the lot of which are my personal “Rosebud.” Well, perhaps just a magic wand, tucked in my hands. Why damn a good magic trick to eternal darkness, and where in the casket would it not look stupid?

These were my real thoughts in the dead quiet of 3 a.m.

On the plus side of this morbid revelry, I was good with being single and alone at that moment. If there’s something I’ve learned in this isolation period, it’s that I’ve been more comfortable in my own skin, having dropped the FOMO that comes with thinking that I have to be doing more to entertain myself. Even Saturday, the perennial date-night standard, has joined the What-Day-is-This-Again? Club, and hanging with my cat, reading, or watching a show has felt just fine. This mindset could change once this sh-- storm has lifted, I realized, and I’d definitely want a new love relationship when one presented itself.

This, however, hinged greatly on my ability to remain a sentient being, and in the moment, I was feeling closer to becoming sediment. By dawn on Friday, I was shaky and trudging about like a White Walker, the center of my chest feeling torched. At six-thirty a.m., I made an online appointment with a doctor. Then I called family to fill them in, and my brother Bill reminded me of something major:

He and I both suffer from GERD, which is the prettier name for chronic acid reflux. He’s had episodes where it hit him so hard, he had to gasp for air. This happened to me once, too, eighteen years ago at a cousin’s wedding in Chicago. After a huge dinner, and many drinks and desserts, I woke up in the wee hours, fighting for breath. I was later diagnosed and treated for acid reflux.

The comparison between then and now? Late Thursday night, I decided to snack on a few M&M’s I bought for a magic trick, since I’ve been posting short performances on YouTube. A few M&M’s became half the family-size bag, along with an equal portion of roasted peanuts. I then went right to bed. If one was looking to test oneself for vestiges of GERD, this was as good a plan as any.

That was, in the end, the complete cause of the incident. A Covid test confirmed what I already knew by Sunday — that I was fine — and I felt lucky and grateful, with extra empathy and sadness for those who are presently suffering or have passed.

I am now assigning my own incident to the past as quickly as possible. Today, Monday, feeling spry once again, I returned to figuring out what trick I will next film and post for my modest social media following.

I also wiped down the f---ing food containers.

— end —

Dan Frischman is an Actor/writer/magician best known for his 80s/90s roles as "Arvid" on ABC’s Head of the Class, and as "Chris" on Nickelodeon’s Kenan & Kel. TV/theater director. Short magic performances at http://www.houdanny.com

Under My Skin
by Mary Cheung
1-7-15
3:42 a.m.
 
You invade my thoughts,
   I cannot sleep.
 
Giving birth to velvet dreams.
 
Rubbing  low, a tender touch.
   Softly brushes and flames my soul.
 
A hole that grows in your absence still,
   Waiting, aching for you to fill.
 
A hunger, a thirst, there is no control.
 
You stroke the fire,
   2 halves made whole.
 
You invade my thoughts,
   I cannot sleep.
 
I resign myself to the lust and the heat...
Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

RAFT OF THE MEDUSA: 9/21/17
by Ed Burgess

Lashed to this raft
Lost at sea 
No walls in sight
Can't build a wall on water

If you Can't swim
Then start drowning

Ripples of time 
Push us 
into a kind of sleep
We dream about walls
We dream about homes
our mothers baking
Apple Pies 
Just for us
Not for you 
Or you 
Or you either 
We fall deeper into sleep 
We drift farther out to sea 

Get off our lawn
Stay away from our dreams
We can have it all
We can fit 
More shit 
Into one bag

We can make you be 
Like us
We will build a wall
God himself
Has shown us how
We will show YOU. 

Waves of time 
Crash over our heads
We are awoken
Huddled together on this raft
Not in a dream

We are in the desert
We have built the wall
It is right over there
And right here
Between us

Tear down this wall
Break through the fear
Drift out to sea 
Know that you are free

The dream is real
But only when we are awake   

Ed Burgess is an artist, poet and all around bon vivant. He has lived in LA for 20 years and is an active member of the art community. He has exhibited his artwork in many galleries around Los Angeles.


The Full Moon, Souls, and Things
by Jen Bouchard

Energies shift
All sediment putrid below the coals of hell
Bubbling outside my door
What awaits me is chaos
The biggest threat is the danger to my mind that has to stand still But can’t
Do I go this way or that way
Do I step left to race towards or do I dodge right to avoid
Carry on my back the broken/lonely/sick/forlorn
Worn from work
Torn ex lovers I hear your cries
Your tugs on my nightgown
My tight cap I firmly wrap around my eyes
Cover my ears
Drown your wails
Hollow whimpers
If I loosen
I am not certain I will make it to the other side
Where my dreams goals and aspirations
Sickening to my stomach
Lie
Plastic poisonous
Toxic
You do not wish for my arrogance
When you fold your hands to pray for my soul
I should be so humbled to imagine in my mind’s eye You
Pressing your hands
Kneeling in the river of salvation
For my safety
For my happiness
For me to be saved from my broken status
Once this is all over
For us to both be alive so you can hold out your arms To embrace me
Me.
Foolishly putting things on a ridiculous pedestal I cling onto things
When it’s your spirit alongside me
That I truly wish to attain
Your spirit
That I would never have to ask for permission
To cling onto
You recognize me as a someone
That is a blessing beyond comparison when I have wasted precious years on things
That regarded me as someone they would have to fit in between their lunch break and next appointment.
Open arms
Warm hearts
Helping hands
Laughter sprinkling comfort to your words How to repay the spirit you offer
A warm spring
I soak in your calm waters
On the eve of this full moon
I embrace souls and release things.
~ Jen Bouchard
Bio:

Jennifer Bouchard is a poet/actress residing in Los Angeles. Being a sexual assault survivor, the majority of her writing revolves around her healing process. Jennifer recently performed a piece at Healthy Housing Foundation’s slam event, The La Dream. She also recently self published her first collection, White Helmet.
Contact Info:
Jenn3382@gmail.com


Thanks for joining us! Let me know how we’re doing here and PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the arts!!
With great hope for our future
Love,
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.


June Poet's Place

POETS PLACE
JUNE 2020


June!!! How many days now have we been locked out of our normalcy? Lunacy more like it! I have been feeling as though I’ve been dropped off a cliff, tethered to a long bungee cord banging my head against the hard rock, swinging back and forth and back and forth trying to knock the reality into me that- Yeah. Now what?? Plans? I had plans. Yes, and Bam! I was omnipotently believing and shockingly thinking, as we all have, and forcefully been hog tied and brought to the realization, that all is different now!! And not to say that I’m religious, but what was that saying in the bible? “You make plans and God laughs”. Haha. Guess what! This one’s on you! Me! All of us! Sheltered and ordered to stay in place! Keep your distance and cover your face! Okay. Of course I will comply. New rules.

Enjoy this month’s offerings from local poets. Keep em coming folks!!!


Lunacy
By Linda Kaye
5/20/20

Lunacy is thinking that you willed the squirrel in your garden with your mind to kill that annoying mockingbird.
Lunacy-lunaticus- madness. Driven mad by the confines of the country’s stay at home order. She bathed in her vomit thinking it would heal her nerves.
Irrational thinking by whose standards? Could she instead have drunk Clorox bleach to kill any virus still lingering in her body? Is someone a lunatic who believes that Moses actually could part the waves for the Israelites to escape the Egyptian‘s?
I think therefore I am.
I believe therefore it’s true. First signs of lunacy- confused thinking.
Pandemics create pandemonium the capital of hell, Paradise Lost. Don’t eat the apple it’s contaminated! Equals extreme fear, worry and anxiety-signs of lunacy.
Social isolation equals social withdrawal drought from human contact equals depression, accelerated cognitive decline-lunacy.
The lunatics once released from captivity will create a new world order of chaos and mayhem isn’t that happening now in Wisconsin?



WHEN THE NIGHT GAINED ITS STARS
By Richard Q Russeth

There is the sadness of flowers of course,
when they throw their seeds to the wind and
there is nothing to hold them.
no angel or sun or rain.

There is the suddenness of loss -
as when a friend dies that you’ve been
meaning to call but then you get the news and
everything is broken glass.

There is that place where love and hate intersect,
that sniper’s dream, that place where
you can never run fast enough,
and everything is far.

There is the dream that ends with an alarm.
Another that ends with eternity.
And another that just ends and you realize
the sunrise ever does not wait.
There is hopelessness of course. Always that.
The wonderment of god
and why does life hurt so much
when all you did was open your eyes
after a journey of blood and stars and months.

There are times when
only bare trees make sense,
only clocks keep time,
only babies give hope,
the impossible cost of truth
is revealed,
forgiveness is given,
and the trees bloom
with a passion born of forgetting
that they’ve done it a hundred times before.

We are given this life for remembrance,
for that moment when truth had a beating heart,
for when all that was thought lost was found,
and the night gained its stars.

Richard Q Russeth
Baker, Poet, Conjuror, Photographer, Attorney
www.richardqrusseth.com




Pain in America
By Ronald Carrilo

I want to release the pain in your national heart
Before our allegiance falls apart let me hold you
My prayers are mixed with sin
I live in the duality of America
Her gaps ever widening
Her politics false
Only win win even in the face of loss
But you are my constitution
Your love for me is my Bill of Rights
Your flag of stars and stripes are my refuge and republic
Your kindness is my democracy
Release envy of the mind
The paradigm shift has started
We now live in another time
Our gold is not worth a dime
The old financial guard fears a coup
A people’s flu for recharged freedom
A viral awakening in a cesspool of greed
When there was no need
The money changers from ancient times have followed us
The crusades perfected this thievery and spread its evil seed
Our federal reserve is neither federal or the people’s monies
High crime in desperate times wash to our shores
The masses are easy to control when asleep or masked
But the giant must awaken and tend to the task
Our migratory routines no longer work in the scheme of things
We are chained in serfdom
Our democracy has become polite slavery with benefits
Profit is everything but it requires a stealth sleight of hand
A high demand for wealth
Engineered adroit deception of the people
Even a manufactured virus to deceive
Fake news the people receive daily like manna
Survival mode rules in the cruelty of this world
Coda: That dream time has passed in sorrow
Alas we reap what we sow
Although we can still find salvation in our penance
The years of our toil in a city of tears are slow
Our angels have dispersed into the shadows of our shame
Many fingers point to those they think to blame
Pick up a mirror and find your truth
Many lessons still to be learned
But we begin again dusting off past errors
Looking toward heaven we take new steps


Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, and Neil Young.



We’re Fixin to Kill Us
By Eva Mauer- with a little help from my friend Pat
Based on the protest song by Country Joe and the Fish

Our right to party’s in jeopardy
No big groups says the CDC
They’re sayin too close we must not stand
No open beaches in Covidland

So put down the facts and pick up a gun
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun

And it’s one, two, three what are we waiting for
Who cares we don’t give a damn
We’ll party in Covidland
And it’s five, six, seven
Open up the pearly gates
Well there ain’t no need to wonder why
Whoopee! We’re all gonna die

Come doctors and governors let’s move fast
Your big chance has come at last
Now you can go take away our right for fun
To protect those old folks whose time has come
You’ll know our fun has just begun
When we’ve blown us all to kingdom come

And it’s one, two, three what are we waiting for
Who cares we don’t give a damn
We’ll party in Covidland
And it’s five, six, seven
Open up the pearly gates
Well there ain’t no need to wonder why
Whoopee! We’re all gonna die




Pat & Eva are retired physicians, who were both dismayed at the results of the 2016 Presidential election.  This is their first foray into songwriting.  Their co-writer was a nice Jewish boy who wrote the most popular Christmas song ever written.  I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.




DIGITAL LIFE
By Mary Cheung
5-15-20
1:06 a.m.

Life in pixels and I'm captured on a screen,
I interact on a 6"window,
Glimpses of life onto a hand held screen.
is that enough?

I interact on a 15" laptop,
is it enough?
Go bigger, go bigger.
Digitize, I fantasize...
big enough to seem real.

Like life from b4.
Only now its all digital.
We live stream,
unless you're really, really poor.

Now I zoom zoom.
Singing, dancing, working,
All fits inside of a room, room!

Streaming on the internet, caught up in the flow.
Birthday parties and celebrations.
How do we handle,
our personal relations?

Touching each other on computer screens,
Our eyes meeting on web cams as we stream.

Class rooms and higher education.
Those who are out of work and on extended temporary vacations.

I can't remember what its like, to feel a hug anymore!
Or the soft pressure of lips of ones that I adore.

Of heated desires,
electrons dancing on my skin.
The friction of our bodies,
as we commit,
     the ultimate sin.

Now I'm just an observer, forced to touch the hard cold screen.
Desperate to replace human interaction.

Living life, in little,
     digital... fractions.

So this is the new norm,
We're all tricked into believing it's all ok.
Losing our voices.
The government tells us,
what to do. What to say.

Inside this digital world,
Life within a little black box.
Strained and contained.
Waiting to break free.

I can't wait to go analog,
Digital just isn’t for me.

Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.


“Virus of the Soul”
(May 2020)  by Lisa Montagne
 
Sometimes I lay
Awake
At night
Worried
That you Worry
 
That the Government will
Inject your soul with a virus.
 
During the day,
The Media
Swallows you whole,
Head to foot,
In its wide maw, chewing you,
Feeding,
Until it spits you out,
A poison after all. 
 
The Aliens, flying through chem trails,
Will be next to sicken you with sadness.
The man on YouTube said so.
From his basement studio,
The man said they are in league
With the Illuminati—which is real, btw,
Because the Internet said so.
 
Things just don’t add up, you say.
Look at this, you say:
I mean, these alien footprints
Are in my backyard this very minute.
They are here!
You screamed through my phone:
They are here!
 
You look to the Emperor to save you.
But he wears no clothes.


Lisa Montagne, Ed.D.

A native of Southern California, Lisa Montagne, Ed.D., is a poet, writer, artist, and college English professor who specializes in online learning. She has read her poetry to audiences in Los Angeles, Portland and Tampa, including at the Beyond Baroque poetry center and for Writ Large Press and PenWriter America.  She has been published by The Ear literary and art magazine, the Variant Literature Journal, Boomer Reviews, and Running Wild Press.


Thanks for joining us! Let me know how we’re doing here and PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the arts!!
With great hope for our future
Love,
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.



May Poet's Place

POETS PLACE
MAY 2020

Still life in Quarantine

As May rolls around and the city remains under tight restrictions to stay at home, all I can think of is what will the city look like when the gates re-open, and the humanoid masses are let out of their cages. Will we swarm, dance, scream hysterically towards the once forbidden mostly deserted streets and hug everyone we see? Pig out in the once neglected, locked up and barren restaurants to eat and sit all day in chairs once verboten? Rush through the yellow barricade tape at the local beaches yelling, “Here I come, last one in is a rotten egg!” Rush the counters of Starbucks for that desperately needed latte beating down the crowds that have been creating traffic jams bleeding out into the streets from the only open drive thru in you’re neighborhood? Will we have learned that our arrogant negligence of other’s health has been a precursor to this pandemic!! Have we learned that due to the rampant denial of contagious behaviors - many people are horribly sick and many have died? We have forever been going into public places whilst we have colds n flu’s, sneezing on others’ shopping carts, vegetables and bathroom sinks. Will this obnoxious contaminating behavior continue as before this storm hit?

Kids- I don’t personally plan to rush out into the city, carousing as before - drinking carefree in local bars, dancing and raging (yes, me) in rock, jazz n punk clubs, or wrestling in gyms too soon after the quarantine is lifted. I want to wait a bit and see how everyone else responds before I feel safe enough to venture out.

What do you think?

This month we are hosting poets and writers from all over the country, including Puerto Rico! Sharing, wholeheartedly, maybe even exclusively, their sometimes hidden harbored intimate raw feelings and delightful sensibilities. Their stories may be revealing their truths, but definitely their heart and soul, unburdened, released just for you and me.

ENJOY!


The Wolves of Washington” - Unitsi Ai

All right are wrong 
And wrong are right
Lashing their tongues 
with all their might.
Snarl and shun brothers
Drawing Battle lines 
Night falls 
Brings rise
Two packs
One prize
Howling 
Mother Moon

Desperate claws of rage
Grasp and engage
While praying
For day to come.
A reminder
Both sides are made 
Of Sun
And sons
Of the same 
Father.


Austin Musick (AKA Unitsi Ai ) is a writer, poet, lyricist and actor. Originally from East Tennessee, she grew up with The Great Smoky Mountains National Park as her backyard where she and her five brothers and one sister spent the days in the woods and on the river. Austin graduated from the University of Tennessee with her BA in Theatre with a minor in business. When not creating, she serves as the President of TAO Enterprises, a Commercial Real Estate corporation on the East Coast. She has lived in California for the past ten years with her two daughters. As a strong and independent single mother, Austin, strives every day to teach her children the value of pursuing one's dream, never giving up hope, and valuing the gift of life. She feels the most valuable lesson she can teach them is the importance of giving back in gratitude for the blessings we have been given; to pay it forward by giving more than we take in this lifetime.

Karmic Synchronicities: 2020
By R. G. Carrillo
April 2020

The dark forces are only getting darker
But are finite and unable to expand
Karmic synchronicities of inner fulfillment
And service to our fellow man are changing the social consciousness
Ride the wave of this change
Find your crest of social metaphysical design
Reset and enter this new dimension
Who do you trust?
Decades of meditation and spiritual development
Are coming to the forefront of man’s being
Millennials riding on the shoulders of their Baby Boomer cousins
Will lead this new paradigm shift
The materialism of the past is a tar pit of futile fossils
Edgar Cayce beings are no longer the exception
Our DNA is ever evolving to meet future humanitarian needs
Marvelous human nature maturing and manifesting our destiny
The birth pangs of a new social order for the people
Will abort a new world order from the puppet masters of Wall St.
Corporate devils will feed no more
Will no longer deplete the lion’s share
Some seed fell among the rocks
Some seed blew away in the wind
Some seed was choked in the weeds
Some seed fell on fertile ground
Spring will bring a new harvest
Coda: The wrath of God
When man turns his back on the creator
Like a virus released in pure clean water
Sin spreads from seed to harvest
Look inward reset your heart
Protect your soul
Persevere this pilgrim’s progress of gratitude
Develop an appropriate attitude of love
Let kindness be your spirit guide
Be of service and support to your community
Return to the garden of your exile


Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, and Neil Young.



Lilly White Country
Lyrics by Pat & Eva Mauer, December 9, 2016
To the tune of ‘White Christmas’, by Irving Berlin
Copyright TXu 2-081-539 Reg. Dec. 15, 2016.


I’m dreaming of a white country, just like the one I used to know
Where money glistens, and women listen, and the Klan can still put on a show.

I’m dreaming of a white country, just like the one I used to know
With monster tariffs, and racist sheriffs, and no more jobs in Mexico.

I’m dreaming of a white country with every Christmas card I write
May your days be merry and bright, and may all you neighborhoods be white.

Pat & Eva are retired physicians, who were both dismayed at the results of the 2016 Presidential election.  This is their first foray into songwriting.  Their co-writer was a nice Jewish boy who wrote the most popular Christmas song ever written.  I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.

The Bicycle Brand T-shirts you wore
 
Bicycle Brand,
   made in Hong Kong, 
      just like you.
 
I take a deep breath,
     I am surrounded by you
I take a deep breath,
     and inhale your scent, 
 
I am transported back in time.
 
I take a deep breath,
     and my childhood bleeds into view.
I, am home again.
 
Home smells of you,
the scent of cooking and care.
Of love, sweat and tears. 
 
My nose is in your shirt.
I take a deep breath.
 
Bicycle Brand, inspected by #40.
Original stitches still intact.
Washed and handled with care,
     all of these years...
just like you did for us.
 
Softly I hold you to me again,  
    and I take a deep breath.
I carry you into me always.

Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.


©The End Game
By: IE Carlo
26 April 2018


The End Game. Governments playing serious games with our lives, our childrens lives, an apocalypse of a mishap for the world. should we sit back and allow it to happen? We should be outraged with disdain. This thing call politics for the privileged is against all of humankind. 
The most ironic and iconic is the fact that The End Game is all we have in this life. We are all going to die, you know it, they know it, all of humankind know it. So what the fuck is wrong with all of us humankind? 
Pray to whatever god you wish to pray too, but leave science alone! That’s where the game is. 
I heard, probably here on facebook, something quite interesting; it could have been a commercial that also proves The End Game. 
It starts with the caveman; he lives off wild berries, fresh meat for protein, roots right from the ground, nuts, breaths the cleanest purified air. Drinks the cleanest purest water, has plenty of exercise, and dies at thirty eight…!
People we must get off this idea of living forever and recognize how truly vulnerable and precious we are. We are part of that universe and there is no room for hate and ill will. Using our resources for the betterment of the humankind is our mission, if, but we strive for that kind of world. I believe it could happen in this lifetime.
Leaving our lives to others to use as pawns in their quest for control via force, threats, intimidations, and war, is not conducive to the humankind. 

This thought is a universal thought I am sure, for the ones that are in control are but a small band of incompetent fools, who think small for the humankind. Using God or whatever narrative fits their agenda. 
Be aware people, life is to be lived via a set of rules that has been in place since the beginning of humankind and takes all of humankind to keep it in place, and that is to live in peace by way of helping humankind in its quest through science and the fact that no one leaves here alive. Life is for Living!
“The End Game”!

Ismael (East) Carlo, poet, actor began his career on the streets of East Harlem, el barrio whose moniker of “East” happened due to others not being able to pronounce the name, Is-Ma-El…
East, considers himself more a storyteller than a poet, although at times he gets lucky and poetry emerges from his stories...
For more about East, visit IMDB.
Paz en Vida


DANCING IN THE TIME OF PANDEMIC
by Richard Russeth

I.

My parents were not good dancers.
They did not love it, and so only for
certain well-worn songs would they venture
into the sea of swirling cocktail dresses,
my father holding both his cigarette
and my mother’s hand.

I never thought my father would die,
but two packs a day, and sometimes three,
was not good.
I never thought my mother would die,
but admittedly her whiskey habit was a bit much
even for an Irish gal.
So, it was not so very surprising,
in either case, when the doorbell rang,
and death bade them leave everything behind,
an overnight bag being superfluous.
Though I think my mother might have,
had she had the chance, taken the makeup valise
where she hid the small pills.
As for my Dad, he just put down his cigarette and left.

As for me, I miss the smell of zippo fluid,
the promethean spark, the sharp intake of breath
and then, relieved sigh.
I attended both funerals,
and though eight years part,
It felt like I had simply stopped for gas
going from one to the other.

Eventually, all the friends of my parents
answered the doorbell. Most were surprised,
the way people are surprised when told they’ve
won the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes,
nobody expects to win that silly contest.
We tell ourselves it’s inevitable, but we don’t
believe it. Other people win, not us,
or, anyways, not for a long time


II.

Now the pandemic couple
strolls onto the dance floor,
their lovely carnation boutonnieres
just so; oh, come now,
surely you knew it was a couple!

The last dance is theirs always,
and when they trade partners,
their scent, a perfume steeped with earth,
iron and regret, lingers on the skin
and stings the eyes.

When the band finishes the tune,
their parting words are the same always:
“Pity you thought you were invincible, my dear,”
and then whispered discreetly:
“This dance can be sweet,
but only with those who adored the dance,
and never cared what the song.”

The crowded ballroom watches
Johnny swing the band
to the rafters and back.
All through the night, no one notices
the handsome couple
straighten each other's boutonnieres,
and with a small curtsey,
walk into the swaying crowd,

with no particular tune in mind.

Richard Russeth is a poet, writer, photographer, magician, baker and lawyer. You can check out his photography at www.richardqrusseth.com or follow him on IG: @rqrusseth. Richard and his wife Charlotte live in Evergreen, Colorado.

Thanks for joining us! Let me know how were doing here and PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the arts!!
With great hope for our future
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

April Poet's Place

POETS PLACE
APRIL MONTH 2020

April 1- this is definitely NO JOKE! Do you actually feel safe at home? Can
you definitively say you are secure enough and have the tools and the
resources to survive without the rituals of daily living that have sustained
you for most of your life? Our world, as we knew it, has been altered
drastically, and without any warning. There were no bells sounded to alert us
of impending doom. To give us time to pack up and store the necessary
goods to sustain us until the storm passed. We’ve had to stop what we were
doing, as if a stop motion camera was paused in mid-
walk/drive/laugh/loving/hugging/touching, or the cords were cut on our car
batteries, and then to immediately adjust to being quarantined like the lepers
were in 1866 on the island of Molokai! REALLY?? Is that our fate next? I
certainly hope not. I believe my most valued resource is hope. Without
hope- Well you tell me…
My current state of mind…
Stolen Pleasure
a manifesto
by Linda Kaye

This moment in our time has created a noticeable void
A dangerous precipice that has opened up multiple fissures and gaps
draining our swamps of endless pleasure troves
What used to be is no longer
What is or was lost are stolen pleasures
What personal pleasures have you lost? Are they defined by personal
existential fears of losing obsessive psychological needs?
The greed’s of societies decadence are prevalent from the overflows of
negligent squander, idiotic beliefs that the carousel runs forever
The pervasive magical thinking of security “they will fix this and take care
of us” mentality
What security? Does it really exist? Can security be proven?
By what means? What have you invested in yourself to claim that you can
be secure in the life world you have designed for yourself?

If the masses come knocking will you share your wealth? Your poverty?
If projection towards your future comes to pass what resources do you
consider most valuable? Have you invested in your family and friends who
will hopefully come to your rescue if you have neglected your own security?
If we admit today’s society is sick from a devastating illness are you
prepared mentally for the consequences? If you fall into a profound and deep
depression what, who will save you from yourself? Are you really prepared
for this?
Survival depends on the preparations you have invested in your whole life
Are you ready? Here it is.


This month I am please to host several poets. We begin with-
Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her
works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She
mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is
wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style
Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often
paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word
art as another form of expression”. Here is Mary’s poem for the April
edition of ‘Poets Place’
Death of Humanity
9:20 a.m. 3/17/20


By Mary Cheung
Its the death of humanity,
Its very scary, very sad
Price gouging, hoarders, scammers,
everyone out for themselves...
How did it get so bad.
I go to the pet store, to buy treats for my dog.
Only to find a parking lot full…
of people waiting to buy guns,
A 6 hr back log.
Scrounging for guns to "protect" themselves they claim...
becoming each others enemies?

Instead of each others saviors,
we only have ourselves to blame.
An apocalyptic movie, come to life.
So this is how it begins,
Paranoia, panic sets in.
everyone loses,
and nobody wins.
Its a ghost town out there,
grocery stores seemingly a mile long.
fights over the last loaf of bread,
where did it all go wrong?
Have we lost or minds?
Will it ever be fine?
A crisis is the true test of our humanity.
Right now, its dying because we are too panicky.
As I look out my window and I spy nature,
And the reminders of life..
It gives me hope… that we'll rise again
Despite the pandemic and strife.
Combat paranoia and fear,
fight it with love, kindness and compassion.
Let’s make sure humanity doesn’t disappear.

For more info on Mary Cheung please visit her at
https://notjusttheordinary.wixsite.com/marycheungartist
https://www.facebook.com/mary.cheung.1675

Leon McConnell, another poet who is sharing his thoughts with us, is the
author of the poetry books All of my Snipple Snapples and Meow Rawr
Frillzies as well as being a musician and the writer/director of the film
HomeSick. He lives in Los Angeles.

Back to One
Here I am. Back to 1. Looking at the hole and thinking of better ways to
climb it.
Passing clouds remind me of those who’ve been down here in the dark with
me, such good friends. For years, they’ve been living somewhere in my
stomach and I want to pull them through. If memories are energy and energy
is matter then these people are alive in the moments between souls, stuck in
the crannies of a braincell
Knocking on the windows of your memory
Something your cat watches out the corner of it’s eye. All ghosts are
welcome to climb this hole with me. I’ve found the haunting helps lubricate
some synchronicity. See, I’ve been stretching and growing and feeding my
aura. I flipped a switch like the kitchen light and became a beacon, attracting
all the weird ones society says are unlatchable. I laid down and left a light on
for them. I’m riding the wings of moths fresh out of dreams and licking their
dust off my fingers. I’m tallying matchstick towers towards coincidence,
trying to burn brighter, working at becoming a better daylight, trying to
become today tomorrow.

And finally,

“Armageddon or Heaven”
by Ed Burgess 4/1/20

Red, white and blue
Red blood from our hearts
White phlegm from our lungs
Blue on our lips
Dead and alive
Free but enslaved
Wrapped in our flag
While it burns
Our throats sore
Inhaling the smoke
Hot in a fever dream
The Armageddon has come

Heaven’s door opens
We see the other side
Is it better in Armageddon
Or is it better in Heaven
Only we can decide
To stay inside ourselves
Or venture out beyond
Into Armageddon or Heaven
Ed Burgess is an artist, poet and all around bon vivant. He has lived in LA
for 20 years and is an active member of the art community. He has exhibited
his artwork in many galleries around Los Angeles. He also writes poetry and
sometimes reads it publicly.
Thanks for joining us! PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the
arts!!
With great hope for our future
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

Hello Hoodlum!Tomorrow, Sunday April 5th at 4pm PDT, get ready for TEA TIME with REVEREND DAN live on Twitch.tv! Wild Rock 'n' Roll for your afternoon refreshment! Grab a cup and I'll see you tomorrow at https://www.twitch.tv/ReverendDanKXLU

Hello Hoodlum!

Tomorrow, Sunday April 5th at 4pm PDT, get ready for TEA TIME with REVEREND DAN live on Twitch.tv! Wild Rock 'n' Roll for your afternoon refreshment! Grab a cup and I'll see you tomorrow at https://www.twitch.tv/ReverendDanKXLU

March Poet's Place

Poets Place
March 2020

As we roll into March we find ourselves contemplating our presidential choices and decisions for democratic candidates. Maybe we are hopeful and maybe not. How can we not be cynical in this climate riddled with so much doubt and not enough security? Are we just waiting for “The Glew”? As the Poetess Reigns writes in her poetry offering. “Tick Tock waiting for the clock…” What can we do to hold on and find the calm and some serenity? “Just one moment let me take a good long look at him (or her or them). With a fresh pair of eyes like a newborn baby looking at the sky for the first time”. Jen Bouchard touchingly writes in her piece. We need that softness, that caring, for ourselves to nurture us through those waves of darkness that sometimes over burden us, and cloud our senses. Let’s declare squatters rights in our own domains! As Ron Carrillo so adeptly wrote in his piece “The Writers Domain”. Right on Ron! For myself, I am humbled by the poets and writers that I share the Los Angeles stage with and I want to host you all! For this month I offer this poem:

Journeys End

Her heart bled yearly, as did this season’s balled and rotted roses. With only one day left of life before the inevitable decline. In her mind she desperately and fruitlessly clung to the fading color that was once radiant. It felt as though her heart would break as the petals loosened and began their journey downward. A frequent reminder of it and life’s demise.

The beginning of the blooming cycle was a harsh and constant reminder of when her Father, a man of fierce convictions first planted those rose bushes. It was around the time, unduly, of her only son's untimely death.

The blooms would peak and laugh at her she thought, the same time of year creating for her a somber reflection, a slap in the face, of the passage of life a rebirth of a new season of unrelished change. The colors textures smells always changing. Never as lush as the year before but subtly different, coaxing- as were her perennial dower thoughts.
You’d hope that watching and participating in the constant cycle of growth and budding of the roses would help to distract away from her painful and tragic loss.
A medicinal tincture if you will, to alleviate the depression and profound sadness.
Counting religiously the falling petals as she did time. Everyday. Always.


Here are the offerings from our talented poets of March 2020!

The Poetess Reigns aka JackieRay Phillips is Creator of The Poetry of Justice Show, Where Social Consciousness Meets the Arts. The Show is designed to spark the interest and awareness of social diversity ranging from arts, entertainment and social justice at large. Catch The Poetry of Justice Show Saturday nights 6:00-8:00pm PST Live @Yikesradio.com and @AcceleratedRadio.net in addition to all other podcast streaming platforms. You may also view and subscribe to the Show’s YouTube channel @The POJ Show. Follow us on IG @The POJ Show and FB @ The Poetry of Justice Show and JackieRay Phillips.


The Glew



Tick-Tock

Waiting for the clock

To stroke the strike of 12



Twelve dancers prancing

And glancing...



Through the trees

With electric energy

Seamlessly true

Ecstatic and wildly new



Existence
The way of life

Loving beneath the skin

Getting it ALL in

Into the groove



Stop!

Don’t you move

Making it smooth
Into the right place

Hunting the great Fate



A quest for self

Like a Big Game TROPHY

Recognizing the Stealth

Ho-Hum...



Who have we become?

Is this really new?

Sudden! Like BOOM!?

Straight out the Blue?



What about you?

What do you think?

What makes your heart sink?

Into the well...



Praying to GOD it’s not Hell!

Those fiery gates of fright!

Sometimes even on a Friday night!

What the sight!



To see...

Just Me...

Being ME...



Ooh-Wee!



Jen Bouchard is a poet and actress residing in Los Angeles. Last fall, she traveled to New York to perform her work in a Burden To Bare Art exhibit, performed in The Vagina Monologues at Muckenthaler Cultural Center, a featured poet for Polar Harmony organization, and performed a spoken word piece for Healthy Housing Foundation’s first poetry event, The LA Dream. She recently self published her first collection, White Helmet.


You were the last chapter of my story.

I created you into a godlike stature with the veins of all my monsters
So I could look high and marvel at the debris and decay which is now called my past life.
My past life a whole pile of sad tales Which I now close and leave at my bedside table.
As a reminder to never live in that story again.
But sometimes you jump out the pages
Come alive
When a new lover comes to leave his clean canteen of drinking water on my bedside.
When his godlike shadow bounces on the wall
There you are.
Latching yourself like heavy iron
My tired eyes
Crumbling like fallen warriors
Battle worn and fed up
I would give anything for just one clear look.
A breath of fresh air his baby smooth skin
Words filling me with sweet forgiveness
He reminds me with his song to forgive.
Yet your story still lingers to kill the magic of his kiss.
Let me have just one moment.
Just one moment let me take a good long look at him.
With a fresh pair of eyes like a newborn baby looking at the sky for the first time.
Just one moment where you haven’t carved yourself on me like a tattoo
Burning the insides of my lips
Turning them to prickly thorns
Leaving him scathed bare and raw to the bone.
Just one moment let me look at him
Let me be reminded that I have soft lips
That I am welcoming and warm
That I swoon and giggle and god forbid moan
Let me take my new lovers canteen of clean drinking water
Let it wash over me like I’m being baptized made holy again by his perfectly imperfect pure immaculate skin.
Harmless non threatening fearless his shadow bounces until the entire rooms spins.
Let it heal me or that very least let it be temporarily relief
Let the thorns slowly fade as I feel the magic when we play.
Let the music stay the same
Let me not be reminded of that day
One year
One fight one anything
It’s moment like these.
When I’m pleading for the impossible to be.
It’s moments like these
That I have to make peace with the fact that I might not ever be free.
Otherwise you will cover me whole
Until I lie with you in a dark hole
Dreaming the impossible dream

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.

The Writer’s Domain

The dark and light of it
Left me in shadows and doubt
About a mystery never clearly explained to me
I was without him
But within my own space
I realized what I wanted
But didn’t need his embrace
It was a myth we were all chasing
Racing for a spin on love’s roulette wheel
It wore me out knowing I could never win
Let’s make a deal with jeopardy
I dipped my pen in Eros’ blood
And replenished my Soul in the poet’s love
That only words can represent me

Distilling bad dreams and fending off enemy Lotharios
Still grinding my own coffee beans
And fighting the righteous fight
Despite bad karma in the night
And astral traveling in another life
Trying to make things right in such poor light
Like a moth drawn to uncertain flames
I declare squatter’s rights in a writer’s domain




Thanks for joining us!
Please submit your work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

Linda Kaye

For February - Valentine Month 2020

Poets Place
Valentine Month 2020

Here we are again fellow writers and poets extraordinaire! We are featuring 3 delicious writers to wet your whistle with their talents galore.

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Heights Angelino, living in Eagle Rock, and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, and Neil Young. His piece this month was written for my upcoming poetry musical “20 years left”.

Jeff Rogers is a well known poet and writer who lives and performs in Los Angeles. He grew up in Michigan college towns. You can find his work in The Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles, and elsewhere. He's been active with the poetry and theater performance troupe Gray Pony since 1988. He performs his work, and MC's poetry and arts events around Los Angeles, including the Drunken Masters New Works Series.

Denise “Nisi” Summers is an Ohio-born poet based in LA’s Westside. She works at Philosopher’s Stone Poetry, where she manages digital content and hosts community events and poetry readings. She is a founding editor of and contributor to PSPOETS’ publications. Nisi is also a member of the Night Owl Players, a local multi-media performance troupe that brings together art, music, and poetry. When she is not writing or performing, Nisi creates mixed media artwork, buries herself in books, and ponders the meaning of existence. She is still learning to juggle.

20 Years Left
by Ronald G Carrillo
The new decade brings vision to my patina
Yoga keeps me practicing presence and breath
A novena in maturity – Namaste!
Moving forward in my senior gait
No longer hesitating on my goals
I am feeling whole in spirit
No longer procrastinating but creating new dreams
The hour glass is emptying fast
My gratitude is ever present
My heart is full and still beating
Sparks from 1972 light my way
This life journey I am still completing
Youth was not my crowning glory
Much more comfortable in my senior skin
I swim upstream to my origin
All my sources are joining forces in holiday
Time to begin a new communion
Quality on the loom of my journey
A weaver’s eye picking ever new colors and fibers
Quantity fulfills me no longer
Its quick sensation is for fools and beautiful youth
I am now stronger in my core reducing from things
Their shine distracts and takes up my time
I need to align my poetic rhyme with the divine

Writing in my senior phase of life serves me well
The muses are everywhere
And my pen is responsive to their call
It may be a flower that attracts my attention
It may be my penchant for harmony
I am more aware of the glory of Nature
My relationship with God inspires my words
The red, white and blue are my home base
American soil is my compost heap

Love is playing in my head still
Youth’s bloom gone too soon
Her blush of innocence once pink and fragrant now spent
She pulls aside her veil to view a lover’s full moon
But love’s cruel rule robs her resolve
Her buds dry and scatter without result
A bitter pillow to swallow with no decision
Her vision blown away in the leaf litter

Life’s meaning a personal inventory screening
Striving for the better in my firmament
Holy acts in daily living
Forgiving and pushing past 21st Century AI and 5g
Social media distractions from being the real me
Meeting the challenge to be authentic
Practice presence not texting social gluttony
My senior time is precious and my priorities straight
No longer a leaf in the wind of senseless fate
I continue my journey like a disciple spreading the word
Wield your life sword and continue to engage to your last breath

We all forfeit parts of our physical selves to maturity
Aging mentally develops and tames the ego
But youth’s good looks surrender unquestionably to time
Our senior position smooths out our rough edges
Wisdom waters dissolves our bumps of regret and shame
No longer playing the game we can drink the tea of tranquility
We can walk a golden path of gratitude with peace of mind
Blessings from the heavens
Spiritual security from left to right
All calm and serene on my green home front
Gentle days pass into nights of bliss and solitude

The bloom is off the rose
Her petals parched and picked
And have become wilted in the sun
I too am losing my youthful color in the Autumn of my being
Now becoming white washed with age and some grace
I am disappearing as I pass the baton of responsibility
Like a ghost on the sidelines I move on
This new generation recharges my soul
Like a vampire I am transplanted and transfixed
Millennial soil is rich and fertile
New buds appear all around me complex yet simple
And some are special hybrids
These astound me with their aroma and singular color
The alleluia in their flower
Bedazzles the onlooker in the early morning hour
Their petals are water colored Art
Dew drops are Nature’s accessory
Their shapes are still God’s mystery
I take in their aromatic history

Things Wondrous Made of Plain Things
by Jeff Rogers
We buy three stars
Made from rusty nails and screws
by Nan Wollman at Future Studios

Then we move on to Clare Graham’s MorYork
Where the mild-mannered front gallery gives passage
To a fantastical trove of assemblage art oddities
And found-object storage
As elaborate internal architecture,
Archaeology and geology.

Twisting aisles and alleyways
Of sculptures hanging down like stalactites
And sculptures rising up like stalagmites
And raw materials in free stacks and nestled
In the drawers of tall thin apothecary chests
Lure us ever deeper into a labyrinth.

Bundles of doll parts mummified in cellophane, dangling
Near serpentine columns of nested bottle caps
And the sharp geometry of scrabble-tile city towers.
Straight rows of long low display cases
Enforce a stubborn order along one wall.
Founds objects here have waited so long
For their turn to be harvested, molded and shaped
They have become shape itself.

Move closer then to the shining silver chairs and see
They’re made of aluminum can pull-tabs and think
How can that be comfortable? But give them a try, sit
And feel their shocking springy give, how it calls you
In soft metallic whisper to settle in and stay, rest,
Imagine, let your mind pick its way back through
Things wondrous made of plain things.

What is the Science of our Spirit?
by Nisi Summers

It is the coherent pursuit of wisdom
Of knowing the physical and natural
World; our everything is unknown
So we venture to know it intimately

It is the observe and report of mistakes
By the nature of discovering each other’s
Selves; the ever-changing structure
Until we cannot learn anymore

It is the biochemical weapon of love
To relent the haunting tribunal
Man-Made; unjust claims will remain
So we must fight this to change

It is the method we materialize
To make small sense of what is
Art; the ultimate alchemical balance
Until creation is secure and endless

What is the Science of our Spirit?

It is the paint gliding canvas in streetlight
To kiss guitar’s airy note, typewriter keys’
Tac-Tac; the ancient formula awaits completion
Until the words can reach ears poetically

It is the search for the stone and sword
By combining forces, our metals to find
Elixir of Life; what we came here to do
Until there is no more, becoming realists

It is the chrysopoeia of our spirit tonight
By the transmutation of gold
The Magnum Opus; Art and life collide
So the philosophy rides stoned high

What is the Science of our Spirit?

It is the identity of consciousness
To keep light on the moon, to pull the
Oceans; kinetic energy to keep us creating
So that we know this is science.



POETRY NEWS/EVENTS

Jeff Rogers is reading next at Stories Books in Echo Park on February 13 and co-hosting Drunken Masters: Poetry on February 26 at General Lee's in Chinatown.

Nisi is hosting several upcoming events! Get on board and check them out!
Elevate Studios Presents Play Time Neyborly 2/9 11 am-8 pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/977524059300110/
*Not hosting this, but PSPOETS will be participating

Open Mic: A Night of Love w/ PSPOETS - Gravlax 2/11 8 pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/467031063975917/

Green Dreams - Mar Vista Art & Music Walk 3/7 6/10 
https://www.facebook.com/events/321636232073465/
Night Owls will be participating, details are TBA

Thanks for joining us!
Please submit your work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!
Linda Kaye

Poet's Place

Hello LAARTNEWS readers! Linda Kaye here. Starting today LAARTNEWS launches the ‘POETS PLACE’  which will feature local LA based poets for your daily reading pleasure. Follow us @laartnews/poetsplace and submit your poems, thoughts, suggestions and encouragements for our inspirational 2020 kick off! Let your creative juices soar and rock our socks off with your brilliant prose. We look forward to a stellar year of creativity! We start off today featuring a poem from my new chapbook “What’s Your Hubbub” of poetry styling’s.

Forbidden Fancy

 

sssshhh be quiet look right up the alley just behind the corner through the gates of wrath swathed in the disciples of a moralistic canvas lies a forbidden fancy

temptation pulls at your lust strings envisioning hidden treasures packed and overflowing with rich delights too delicious to eat all at once

sacrificing security of the unknown

fearful of unleashing untold risks destruction of the moral fiber loosely sewn and deliberately unfastened just so slightly to allow the hot breath to escape

knowing full well of the consequences

falling gleefully through the exposed traps that could alter one’s protected future wreaking havoc of changing the expected course

but you enter anyway for what lies beyond is pure ecstasy of the kind only fairytales espouse

a hidden gem that shines so gloriously bright intoxicating- drawing in only the strongest of hearts and minds

 a reward of just desserts

WHAT are you waiting for?

POETRY NEWS/EVENTS

Friday night January 17th 8:30 pm facebook.com/therappsaloonpoetryreading, will feature Mona Jean Cedar, hosted by the beautiful and talented Elena Secota. Linda Kaye Poetry and Josie Roth, violist will also join Mona Jean for a reading of “Forbidden Fancy”.

Thanks for joining us!

Linda Kaye